Chasing Yesterday (rewritten)
by KatStorm
Summary: There's nothing like waking up in an alternate reality to really screw up one's perspective. A word to the wise: don't go to the world's greatest detective to help you fix your problems, because he may be anonymous and you may have to team up with a serial killer to even find him in the first place.
1. Don't Quit Your Day Job

_Hello and welcome to the revised version of Chasing Yesterday, henceforth and forevermore known as, wait for it, Chasing Yesterday! (Because I'm so very original and didn't really want to rename the story.) This is not a sequel, continuation, drabble collection, or anything new; this is just a rewritten version of the pre-existing CY that's been hanging around for four years. Long story short, it was time for a much-needed fixing, so I did us all the liberty of writing a new piece._ _No one needs to go read the original in order to understand this version; t_ _he plot is the same, but the presentation, action, dialogue, and a few scenes are entirely fresh. However, this IS a more mature version of CY [ergo, the mature rating] and this is more of an OC-based fanfic than canon. To those of you anti-OCists out there, RETREAT NOW while you still have your innocence!  
_

 _And before you ask, I have not miraculously gained the rights to Death Note. If I do, you all will be the first to know._

* * *

 **Don't Quit Your Day Job**

 **July 9, 2038; 1:56 P.M.  
Copperhead, Texas; United States**

 _You're out of ammo and the President of the United States is about to get her head blown off by a rogue mafia boss._

Ah, yes. Because in times of great peril, the little voice in the back of my head never ceases to amaze—and harass. On the bright side, I'm _not_ going crazy; that aforementioned little voice just so happened to be the artificial intelligence specifically designed to save my life. To him, this meant giving me a hard time.

 _Grenades? Charges? Samurai sword? C'mon, Trey, there's gotta be something left stashed up our sleeves,_ I countered. _When does the satellite get into position?_

 _Order take-out. It'll get here faster._

Once upon a time, cowboys ran through the small town of Copperhead and kept the money flowing, but as soon as the oasis dried up, the entire population up and left. Two hundred years of wear and tear left it worse off than the original occupants probably intended. A single glance at the decimated structures left much to the imagination.

Copperhead was a good fifty kilometers from civilization and sixty-three kilometers from a decent Chinese restaurant.

The only sounds were the howling of wind as it whisked through the ruins and the crunching of debris under my combat boots. A bandana protected the lower half of my face from the whirlwinds of dust, but earlier, a stray bullet had caught one lens of my goggles and left a mar deep enough to allow specks of who-knows-what to stab me in the eye at extremely inconvenient times. Sunlight ran its merciless talons over the exposed ghost town, scorching every surface with direct contact. I sweltered in my skin-tight clothing. The textiles were dark and bulletproof, only the holster of my custom (but useless) ten-millimeter revolver protruding from the sleek designs.

I just _had_ to lose my .45 at Rio.

"There's nowhere left to run."

Falling into a crouch, I mentally cussed a streak worthy of a drunken sailor. On the back of my lower neck, a spider-like mechanism shifted one of its barbed legs and a slight prickle of pain notified me of the puncture.

 _I didn't know they were that close,_ I thought, inhaling slowly.

 _Join the club,_ replied Trey. His dry tone floated up out of the back of my mind, like an old memory resurfacing.

The voice had been female, strong, and undaunted. I would recognize that commanding tone anywhere and, apparently, so would the third member of the desert-strolling party.

"It's not nice to steal lines." Masculine, confident, but wavering with an adrenaline high. "Or does the Presidency make you untouchable when violating copyright?"

The voices echoed from just around the corner of the clock tower, or rather the remains of what might have vaguely resembled a clock tower in a past life. Slinking closer, I dipped one shoulder and ran my fingers loosely through a patch of broken glass, scooping up a particularly large piece without slicing open my fingers. Just before I rounded the corner of the rubble, I slid the fragment around the edge so as to look without actually sticking my head out.

Two prominent figures stood amidst the ruins: a man and a woman. The woman wore a scarlet blouse and a darker blazer partially buttoned. Her golden skirts glowed the same shade as her long hair, which was drawn into a loose bun. The only part of her appearance that seemed disheveled were her bare feet and the shoes she clutched tightly in one hand, one heel broken off. Finely-trimmed hair dotted the man's balding head, and though he stood with his back to me, I didn't need to see his face to put a name to it. His plaid shirt and jeans were soiled, torn in certain places, but that didn't disguise the semiautomatic pistol he pointed at the woman's head.

President Susan Robinson hesitated, eyes glued to the extended limb. Even from here, I could see the tenseness in her body. "Noel, if I were anyone else on the planet, I might be worried, but I'm going to give you one last chance to drop your weapon and put your hands in the air."

Here, Mathew Noel chuckled and wiped the sweat from his neck. "I guess you're doing this out of the kindness of your heart, _¿si?_ Face it, _gringa_ , you're out of options."

 _Speaking of options, or a current lack thereof, y_ _ou're still out of ammo, the .45 and daggers are chilling back at Rio, and now_ tu jefa _is about to bite the dust,_ Trey said. _Please tell me you have some sort of a plan._

 _Shit. My knives are gone too?_

Noel took a few paces forward, but Susan didn't flinch. Instead, her eyes desperately roamed the landscape, as though expecting someone or something to pop out and save the day.

Unarmed. No ammo. Useless custom gun. Annoying AI conscience/mechanism. President/damsel in distress.

The light bulb came on.

Popping my head out from cover, I waved to Susan until our gazes locked. Swiftly, I pulled the ten-millimeter from my holster, mouthed "BAM," and pointed to the ground, then to Noel's gun. Susan's sights moved on as quickly as they landed.

 _You can't be serious._ Trey said in complete deadpan as I retreated back behind the clock tower's remains.

 _Can you do it?_ I asked.

 _If he shoots her, I'm blaming you._

One hand still aiming the pistol at Susan's head, Noel used his free hand to stroke aside a strand of hair when his next stride brought him within arm's length. Susan jerked back and bit her lip when Noel gripped the gun tighter.

"Now, now, _gringa_ , there's no need to be feisty. Nobody around to see us, and it's not like this place can get any dirtier…" Noel's whisper barely reached me; the disgust on Susan's face was most definitely real. "C'mon, baby. I might even forgive you."

Susan's mouth dropped in outrage and I could see a sharp retort ready on the tip of her tongue, but that was the moment the mechanical device on the back of my neck decided to let out a bang loud enough to be heard two states over.

From Noel's perspective, he must have thought that he had won. One minute, his underground army awaited the order to finish off the combined forces of the American troops and the President of the United States of America was seconds away from becoming his sex slave. Matthew Noel was on top of the world. And then the gunshot rang out across Texas and Susan's eyes dropped to her blouse, disbelief clear on her countenance, and she crumpled at his feet without another word.

Blowing imaginary smoke from the end of my revolver, I stepped around the corner and made a mental note to chastise Trey about trying to blow my eardrums. Noel whirled around, brandishing his gun like a madman. Instantly, I threw my ten-millimeter in the dirt and raised my hands above my head.

"Relax, jumpy, I'm not after you," I said in exasperation, eyebrows raised pointedly.

His hands trembled as he contemplated my words and juggled his options. To shoot or not to shoot. I prayed to every higher deity that he chose the latter. In the end, Lady Luck decided to cut me a break.

"Who the hell are you?" Noel barked.

"Just your friendly, neighborhood mercenary," I said, and added, with a broad grin, "who just took out the President. Frankly, you should be thanking me."

Noel inched backwards. While his intention was to put some distance between himself and this crazy chick, he was getting closer and closer to Susan's limp form.

Just one more step…

"By the way, I have something for you." Pulling Trey from his resting place, I lofted the AI loctopus **(1)** in Noel's general direction. The man skittered backwards, probably suspecting a grenade, but that was all it took to scramble his aim and get him to take that final step.

Susan sprang to life and launched herself at Noel. The man himself was completely unprepared for the assault and screamed profanities as he madly elbowed the air behind him. I threw myself back around the rubble of the clock tower when the gun began to fire rapidly. No, I didn't want to leave Susan to the wolves—er, wolf—but I couldn't exactly help her when dead. Dirt spiked up near my boots as stray bullets caught the surroundings. One battle-cry and two thumps later, I deemed it safe enough to look.

Susan stood over a slumped Noel, holding his gun in both of her hands. A patch of fresh blood had splattered across her skirt and bare legs, but other than a long scratch along one arm, she seemed otherwise unharmed.

Regrettably, Noel couldn't say the same. In fact, he probably wouldn't be saying much at all from now on.

 _KC, the satellite's in position,_ Trey said smugly.

 _I_ will _make a habit out of throwing you at deranged psychopaths,_ I informed him coolly.

* * *

Our story began four years ago with our dead man walking, Mathew Noel, a mobster from Central America. Upon marrying into a family of the more illegal assortment, Noel weaseled his way into every underhanded deal he could muss with his own hands and laid waste to those he couldn't. In two years time, he had overrun every family in Mexico—which is when he made his first mistake.

Angel, the head of a family operating within the capital of the United States, saw him as a rising threat and sent men to negotiate or take out Noel. The man himself saw this as a personal attack and, underestimating the anonymous leader's power, had the men killed without second thought.

Suddenly, the name Mathew Noel swept the globe; overnight, the man had become the leader of the Mexican resistance, an activist group more violent than persuading. Mexican forces hunted him relentlessly, and Noel fled to the United States to gather together his mafia.

Over the next two years, Noel waged war on troops from both Mexico and the United States, the latter having joined in solely to rid itself of the criminal. In retaliation, Noel coaxed the underworld to his side. Mexico's families became his reluctant allies, but the United States' families swore to avoid Noel at all costs; Angel's numbers were small, but her bite was far worse than her bark. Regardless, Noel pressed on, seemingly untroubled by the swelling of forces rising against him. Angel inadvertently gave him power—and he now had the actual Mexican resistance on his side—but she knew she had messed up, so she sent people after Noel; assassins, mercenaries, the likes, but to no avail.

Thirty-seven hours before now, Mathew Noel had the President of the United States kidnapped during her speech at the mouth of the Rio Grande. It was supposed to be a union speech, informing the world of Mexico and the United States' temporary alliance against the American mafias; it ended with a shootout and a death toll higher than any battle fought along the Rio prior. But it was a trap.

And on July ninth of the year 2038, Angel and her under-boss, KC, took down the notorious Mathew Noel with his own handgun.

My name is Katheryn Carpenter—KC for short—and I'll be your narrator for this pile of crazy called my life.

* * *

 **July 11, 2038; 9:20 A.M.  
District of Columbia; United States**

Between Hollywood and the press, our society is under the impression that the White House is impenetrable without extenuating circumstances like terrorism, a flowing cape, and/or a hall pass. Sure, the security system was updated when Susan Robinson "stole" the Presidency, but I've told people from day one that as fancy and impressive as technology can be, there's nothing that screams protection quite like a pack of guard dogs. Technology can be hacked, shut down, or infected; dogs can only be fed or screamed at in German.

Or you could just do what I do and get an official badge.

And so, within seventy-two hours of the Noel's demise, I found myself scrubbing my fingers with a disinfectant wipe as I lofted the newspaper out from under my arm and onto Susan's desk. "Look who made the front page again," I said, perching on one of the arms of "my chair" to the left of the desk.

The President didn't look half as stressed as she had recently. The long sleeves of her royal blue dress hid the evidence of yesterday's escapade and her hair had been drawn up into a braided bun, exposing a confident expression and a sparkle in her eyes. One leg lazily draped over the other, both bare feet propped up on the other arm of "my chair;" her shoes lay discarded on the floor, peeking out from under the desk.

Upon pulling the newspaper into her lap, a frown tugged on the corners of her lips. "The mafia is getting to be a real problem, aren't they?"

"How was your flight?"

"Cramped."

As Susan scanned the paper, I fiddled with my ID badge. Jessica Rae McGee. Age thirty-one, five-foot-six, black hair (wears a brown wig), green eyes. Lives alone in the house located in the great District of Columbia that she inherited from a deceased aunt. No pets, no spouse, no boyfriend. Has a high school diploma from some no-name school; enrolled in a military academy for four years before earning her master's degree in chemistry from Johns Hopkins University at the age of twenty-three. Sole association: her best friend and boss, the President of the United States, Susan Robinson.

My alias two decades in the making: a federal investigator who works directly for the President. After a certain _incident_ in 2024 involving a missing Secret Service agent, a quarter of a million bottle rockets, a "misplaced" police car, and a half-shaved poodle, the good citizens of the U.S. decided that it might be okay to let the President have his or her own P.I.

In other words, I had free reign all over the White House grounds, special permissions to see Madam President, and a very good excuse to sneak greasy dog biscuits to the resident overgrown puppies.

"World peace," Susan murmured. She slid the newspaper back on the desk and allowed a small smile to grace her features. "With Noel's people surrendering, there isn't a single power in the world still aiming missiles."

Oh, yeah. That might have been another reason why two nations sent their militaries after Noel: he may or may not have stolen some very important information regarding missile launch codes.

"Or fingers," I said.

 _Yet,_ Trey felt obliged to add.

 _Party pooper._

Aloud, I said, "Cameras are shot, by the way. Trey decided to bless us with the liberty of privacy."

"That's a risky move," said Susan. "The Secret Service will be on full alert until the treaty is signed, and even then, there's no guarantee they'll back off."

"Then I suppose it's a good thing it's time for another security check." I couldn't help the deviousness that curled my mouth into a crooked grin.

Susan shot me a pointed look. "It's a wonder they all don't hate you by now."

I shrugged. "I may or may not have slipped some chow to your Belgium Malinois. Besides, it's Davidson's shift as secretary."

Jonathan Davidson—though I know him as Alpha. At a glance, he's probably the least qualified person to work in the White House: lacking people skills, can barely work a computer without breaking the keyboard, is covered in bold scars all over his face and neck that frighten small children during tours. His gruff voice and bald head don't help the picture, and neither does his seven feet of pure muscle. Point being, despite his… uniqueness, he doubles as a bodyguard when the President is in the building. I think the Secret Service wanted to recruit him for a while until they actually started adding up all of the misdemeanors from his teenage years; now they're just happy that the bulk of it happened over twenty years ago when he was trying to impress his college girlfriend.

Susan dropped her feet from the arm of the chair and slid them back into her shoes. She made a face, muttered something about 'infernal footwear,' and sank back into the plush office chair. Smoothing out her dress with her hands, she turned her face towards me and asked in a low tone, "How are they taking it?"

"How do you think? They're getting credit for the boss's kill." Word from the world down under had reported a significant increase in moral. Rumors from the "real world" said that Angel herself never appeared in the Rio Grande Massacre, but that Noel's death had been at the hands of a criminal nobody. I was happy either way.

"With the boss out of the way, the Noel family and their associates will be unstable for another day or so at least," mused Susan aloud. "We could swoop in and wipe them off the face of the earth without too much trouble during the signing of the treaty."

I nodded slowly. "Alpha's out for blood, but I think he's better suited protecting you at the conference. Is Japan still hosting the signing?"

"Know any other country willing to set foot within two thousand miles of us?"

"Poor Canada," I said with a smirk.

Unlike my semi-useful degree in chem, Susan actually had a PhD in political theory and certain concentrations there upon. To her, this treaty-despite-a-lack-of-actual-warfare came naturally with all of her experience, but that didn't mean I followed to a tee. There was a reason why she ran the land of the free and I governed the land where bullets spoke louder than words.

As Susan snorted, I heaved myself to my feet and the door exploded inwards with a bustle of commotion. I had just enough time to jump backwards out of the way before three of the six rampaging Secret Service agents stubbornly planted themselves at Susan's side. Davidson hovered at the door, adjusting his dark tie and refusing to make eyes contact. Of the two agents who addressed the President directly, only one bothered to give me a nod of acknowledgment.

"McGee," she said simply.

Newbie. I think her name was Agent Yule.

 _Yelchin. Like Anton Yelchin, the actor? Agent Madeline Yelchin,_ Trey said in a tone of cocky indifference.

 _Not all of us have our memory backed up on a hard drive, show off._

 _You do. All you have to do is ask!_

 _Jerk._

"President Robinson, we're leaving now," one of the agents said.

My eyes roamed the posse, more out of habit than curiosity. Agents Ballard, Scott, and Truman surrounded Susan—I recognized them easily from their many rounds near my points of entry—and while Agent Yelchin shadowed the reassigned man (some guy put back in the White House after he got off of paternity leave), it was the final agent who hovered by the door with Alpha who worried me the most.

Running a shaking hand through his short, curly locks, Agent Brown sent his gaze to every visible sight in a matter of seconds. If he weren't a seasoned agent, one might have mistaken his paranoia for nervousness, but Brown's lack of faith in others made him an invaluable asset and a perfect candidate for an emergency bodyguard; he was only called in during times of need.

Basically—if Agents Brown _and_ Davidson had been called on the same shift, shit was about to hit the fan. (If it hadn't already.)

"Is something wrong?" Susan asked without hesitation, gathering herself and straightening her dress.

"The times have been moved up four hours," said Mr. Reassigned Agent Man, whom Trey identified as Agent Kip Wallace. "Air Force One leaves in twenty minutes."

During the next few seconds of the six agents whisking Susan from the room, I mulled over details of the proceedings for the next few days. Since the United States President would be overseas for a while, that left me as Angel _and_ KC until the boss could resurface. Given the impressive force of hand back in Texas, I might live two lives for a lot longer than "a few days."

Speaking of my double life turned triple, I turned to Alpha and offered the burly man a question; "So, do you want to explain why this won't show up on camera, or should I just fire myself?"

* * *

 **July 11, 2038; 11:59 A.M.  
District of Columbia; United States**

To say that being the perfect triple agent required a lot of hard word would be a lie. To say that being the perfect triple agent required minimal work would be a load of crap. To say that being the perfect triple agent would swallow your life and any hopes one might have of experiencing normalcy would be generally accurate.

And then there's me.

I don't care what Hollywood & Associates have told you over the years—it's probably wrong. You don't just put on a wig, flip your name tag around and _shablamo!_ you're a different person. You don't get cool gadgets or nicknames or your name on a plaque in the most secret vault of your nation. No Batcave, no butler, no millions of pocket change to blow. In the real world, you're on your own. If you screw up, your own are more likely to take you out than your opposition—and by that point, it's just you and your gun. Because that gun is all you get, and you have to work your way up from there.

Welcome to the mafia.

Years back, Susan set up shop in a quaint apartment complex in the city that never sleeps, but when challenged by five local families with twice the firepower, the tactic was changed to one of more firm locations. The District of Columbia was never once of my favorite places—too crowded, too popular, too much like every other city in the world—but of the two native gangs, one put up a good fight and the other plain up and fled. Between the two, our territory encompassed just enough to satisfy, and with enough stockpiled back for dire situations.

"HQ" was a mere bungalow, its lower floor partially swallowed by earth from an excavation-gone-wrong a good decade or so ago. Shingles drooped from the roof, ivy licked the corners of the building, questionable marks marred the window ledges and the shutters on the upper floor, and anything set on the porch tended to migrate to one side after a week of resting upon the incline. It screamed 'haunted' at a glance, a factor that still draws a proud smile on my face, but the rustic cast-iron and elegant carvings along the porch railings gave it a taste of foreign flavor. Weeds spiked up about the grass, refusing to be beaten down by the repeated assaults of the temperamental weather; I made a mental note to have someone see to our jungle in the next week.

The wooden planks complained in an undertone as I led the way up to the front door. To my right, a mousy-haired woman stretched her hands above her head and popped her shoulders. I caught a brief glimpse of a green and blue tiger prowling along her stomach. "It's clean," Shar said, leaning from side to side. A sharp series of cracks exploded like muffled gunshots. "Checked the whole place top to bottom ten minutes ago—no wire taps, cameras, or bugs of any sort." She sent a pointed look in the direction of my neck.

Three years of dedicated service and I still had to keep myself from patting her on the head. Being exactly five feet tall and looking sixteen had its pros, but it took me over a month to stop referring to her as 'kid.'

I busied myself unlocking the door, taking the chance to discreetly check the neighborhood (barren, which was certainly a plus), and asked, "Is the rest of the family out?" In my world, quiet was rarely a good thing. It meant that someone had me at gunpoint, someone was stalking me at gunpoint, or that everyone knew something that I didn't—none of which are good things.

"Drinking, gambling, sneaking birds **(2)** from the Mexicans," Shar trailed off with a shrug. "Their celebration, but I'm not in the mood for a hangover."

This time, the cricket-filled silence was more of the something I didn't know. Charlotte Bennington is not a concise woman. "Who's the lucky visitor?" I trailed my fingers along the outline of my .45 semi-automatic. Bless Shar for returning my baby to me alongside my knives. Frankly, a part of me wondered why she even bothered.

"One of Blacksmith's. The hot one," she added with a risqué grin.

And on that charming note, I pushed open the door.

Darkness shrouded the foyer in more mystery than its job description. The busted chandelier had rained glass onto the mottled gray carpet; the fringed edges framed the cement floor covered in a thin layer of dirt. Paint faded, displaying the floral wallpaper in its curling glory. The hallway stretched out before us, a flight of steps blocking the majority of the view. Of the four visible doorways splitting apart from the hall, only one door sat ajar with faint light trickling through the crack. Certain heaviness hung in the air and not from the impending meeting—coffee tinted the dust-coated atmosphere.

Had Shar been any other member of the underworld community, I might have dismissed her with a wave of my gun. However, the woman in question worked for me and me alone and could pretty much come and go as she pleased. To say that I trusted her _not_ to stab me in the back is completely ridiculous, but she knew well and good that I didn't take nicely to malign surprises. Also owing me her life twice over tended to help.

The hopeful look in her eye was enough to make me add, "Fetch the schematics and join us in five minutes."

She practically teleported to the first door and kicked it in her haste.

Shrugging off the jacket of my suit, I draped it over the railing of the stairs as I passed, my wig tucked into the folds. My tie found itself stuffed in my pocket, my watch soon following. Every footfall echoed dully as I approached the doorway.

 _Trey, take a hike._

 _Yes, master. I live to serve._ I could practically feel the loctopus's smirk through the collar. Pain pricked the base of my neck as the individual legs poked into my skin, and the mechanism slid out from under my blouse to crawl across my shoulder. Sleek and discreet, Trey looked no more suspicious than any spider—eight-legged, dark gray, with body and legs slightly larger than the palm of an average man. Only if one were to examine him closely would they notice that his entire body was made of metal, his underbelly riddled with slits for his legs to fold into, the gleam of reflections from his head actually being hundreds of microscopic cameras instead of eyes. Artificial intelligence crammed into the body of a tiny mechanical structure.

 _The collar is showing,_ he said, though my ears heard no sound. The double l's were rolled were rolled in the typical Hispanic accent of the Spanish word ' _collar,'_ meaning necklace in English; the pronunciation resembled 'coe-YAR.'

Withdrawing a silk scarf from my other pocket, I looped it on, concealing the strip of copper, steel, and concentrated carbon that encircled the base of my neck. What one couldn't see, even without being disguised by a swaddle of purple and golden fabric, were the millimeter-widths sinking into my neck, attached directly to the nerves in my spine.

The loctopus, the collar—two components to the entire contraption known as "Trey." The third, an ancient iPad, safely hidden away in my own personal hideout. An iPad, a metal choker, and a lock-picking device: put them together and you get the little voice in the back of my head.

All because classy needed a new definition.

You see, the collar doesn't just connect me to Trey, it also connects me to the graphire, my fancy term for the suped-up iPad, capable of accessing any server in the world through my own programming, its original programming as well as my constant mental altering. So long as I remained alive and kicking, the graphire acted accordingly. To put in in simpler terms: I was directly wired into anything and everything electrical. Better yet, I was connected through my own means—via special inventions created by yours truly.

However, the collar doesn't just link me to Trey, and vice versa—it connects me to anything and everything touched by technology, including [especially] the Internet. Think of it this way: the brain sends bioelectric signals through the nerves the same way technology uses electricity and wires; if someone—say, _me_ —found a way to tune those two frequencies and voltages to identical statistics, you could theoretically fuse the living and the inanimate. The collar attaches its needles to my nerves, hitchhikes the signals of my nervous system all the way up to my brain where mind and artificial intelligence can have a nice little chat.

The bright side? I have the entire world at my disposal. I can access the web in the back of my mind and never have to worry about it lagging; I can hack the most secure networks in the world in under ten seconds using a combination of hacking skills and interpretive human creativity; I can save my memories and store them on an external hard drive, so I never have to worry about amnesia, or even simple forgetting (and times when I have to pick a person's name from a single memory or from a memory I haven't revisited in a while, Trey usually tells me before I have to go hunting); I can run license plates, facial recognition, criminal records, or even email and credit—all in the blink of an eye. By melding two vastly different methods into one fluid, working system, I can outwit, outmaneuver, outclass, and outlast anyone and everyone in the world.

Now you know how I manage to juggle mine and the President's secret lives.

The downside? This entire wonderful, glorious, magnificent system runs off of me and me alone, and this baby starves for information. My head fills up pretty quickly, which drains me, and the system itself can only absorb so much stray energy from its surroundings; most all of the system—practically all of it—runs off of me and my own energy. In other terms, my body has to support itself and this parasite I call technology. I eat five times more than any other person on the planet, and even when I do, I feel tired all the time. Or least, I would be if there weren't these amazing things called energy drinks and Pixie Sticks.

When I raised my hand to my shoulder, Trey scuttled onto my fingers, the tips of his legs piercing my fingertips for purchase, and I set him on the wall. Like most web-crawlers, walls seemed about as difficult to transverse as a human would view a rock wall—challenging, but not impossible. Granted, it took him a moment to settle himself properly on the decaying wall, but I received a push of confirmation within seconds.

Winking to the loctopus, I turned the corner and strode into the dining hall.

The gentle whirring of the ceiling fan was occasionally drowned out by the whistles emitted when the bullet holes in the blades caught the air just right; it spun at a lopsided angle—a result of the drooping ceiling and too many shoot outs. A long, mahogany table encompassed the majority of the room with its degrading wood and decimated stains, sucking the life from the cheery yellow of the wall. Daisies patterned the bright paint job, though very few could be witnesses under the slashes and holes scarring the walls. The cemented floor was concealed under another mismatched carpet, this one more suspiciously red that the one in the foyer. Popcorn texture dotted the caramel ceiling, its height varying from a full story to a mere seven feet in drastic undulation. On the end of the table furthest from _moi_ sat a man, coffee mug in one hand, the other rapping a beat on the chair arm where he propped his feet. It was such a comical angle, him bent over his outstretched legs without struggle, that I felt the urge to actually smile.

"As often as you see fit to invade my home like this, I must consider the option of adoption," I said, tugging the holster of my .45 from its new hiding place under my shirt. The entire ensemble was deposited in one of the chairs without ceremony.

"Already vouched for." The man clicked his tongue with a sharp twist of his head. A rogue smile curled the corners of his mouth as he ran a hand through his pale hair. The yellowed lighting of the ceiling fan caught the shaggy locks, adding blonde streaks to his natural chestnut.

"Pity." I slid the diamond daggers from the sleeves of my blouse and deposited them on the table. They were quickly accompanied by my stilettos, the steel heels clinking as they bumped one another.

"So," Oliver Taylor settled himself on the tabletop and adjusted the collar of his button-up, "how do you plan to pay this time?"

Thirty million in U.S. currency is a hefty bill for anyone, but it took the loan to stop Noel, so you won't catch me complaining.

"Debit, credit, _and_ cash." Out came my diamond hair clip, the tip sharpened into a lethal point. My black hair fell around my head in its wild, chin-length spikes.

Oliver's feet slid from the chair. "Information," he confirmed. Years of association were all that alluded to his surprise. "Do you really think anything you know will be worth thirty?"

"Especially if it comes straight from the horse's mouth." Here, I offered a Cheshire grin and added my fake tapers (even plastic ones make great impromptu replacements for spiked knuckles) to the ever-growing pile.

Trey hunkered in the corner of the room above us, sights trained on Oliver. Combined with my own eyes and his access to the hidden cameras, we now had a three-sixty view of the entire dining hall. The collar sent another bolt of pain down my spine, something I was well familiar with, and I could see through every camera in the bungalow.

"Not information— _intelligence_." The spark in the man's eyes proved impossible to miss. "Well, well, well, Miss KC. I sense a big asking in return on our part. What inspired such confidence?"

Right on cue, Shar flounced into the room, binder in hand. Without acknowledging Oliver, she handed me black notebook and nodded. It took a glance at the cover—golden embroidery threading the words 'In Strictest Confidence' into worn, black leather—to determine the nature of the contents before shoving it down to the end of the table. Oliver stopped it with a hand, glancing sparingly at Shar, and ran his hand over the cover.

"That should cover twenty." Off came my spiked bracelets and poison-infused "class ring."

 _Oliver Taylor, recently accused of arson against a small church in Belmont, Virginia and released when no evidence could incriminate him. Sorry about the delay. Blacksmith already sent in one if his guys to wipe his rap sheet from the police, so I had to go into local records._ Trey sounded sheepish.

 _So far he's been in for assault, breaking and entering, rape, jaywalking, unintentional manslaughter, loitering, treason, premeditated murder, and now arson. If the charges for murder weren't actually real, I might be temped to hire him,_ I mused. _We could use a cover agent like him around._

 _Hell, no. I'm not helping you steal one of Blacksmith's men._ Trey implied a firm shake of his head.

 _Still, his job is to take the blame for crap other people pull and manage to weasel himself out of harm's way. Think of the revenue we could pull in covering up political scandals. If he belonged to anyone else, I'd take him in a heartbeat._ Because, unfortunately, Trey was right. Going up against the anonymous Blacksmith was suicide, even for a family whose boss was the President of the United States. Not to mentioned that pissing him off would mean finding another dealer, and the efficiency and credibility of our current supplier was a rare commodity in the world of criminals. Common sense wasn't quite so common as television made it out to be.

"And the other ten?" Oliver leafed through the pages with a lazy eye, making sure to keep Shar and me in his peripheral.

I pulled a slip of paper from my bra, handed it to Shar, and removed my gloves, tossing them on top of the pile. "Twelve is being deposited in this account as we speak. The transfer is untraceable; I saw to it myself."

Switching my vision to Trey's, I watched the duo's facial expressions as Shar strode across the room, when she extended the ripped corner of the page, as their fingers brushed. The corners of her mouth twitched (masked happiness) and her crow's feet wrinkling briefly (proof of authenticity); his eyebrows raised a millimeter for a nanosecond—a brief inquiry; her microscopic nod—'I'm doing fine.' Oliver switched his gaze to the paper and the address written there, but his eyes flickered upwards for a heartbeat.

 _You sly dog_.

 _What?_ I feigned innocence. _If he decides that his loyalties lie elsewhere, that's none of my business._

Shar shot me a sharp look over her shoulder, but the grin remained plastered to my face. Under the scrutiny of both stares, I grappled with the back of my bra for a moment before ripping free the twist ties and lofting them onto the table. There was a pause as Oliver checked his phone for confirmation where the silence rang louder than any sound.

Then his mouth quirked to one side in contempt. "I feel awfully under dressed for this round of strip poker," Oliver gestured to the pile before tucking the note into the pocket of his khakis, "so I'll take my leave. You have the gratitude of my employer, KC."

"Likewise, Mr. Taylor. Anytime." My smile turned genuine.

The man slid himself from the table—nodding to Shar—before tipping his nonexistent hat to me. "I trust that the extra ten would be a tip and not a down-payment."

"Indebting your employer eight million already?" I asked innocently.

He winked. "Never miss a thing, do you? Two it is, then."

"A pleasure doing business with you, Mr. Taylor," I said with a smile.

"I told you, Miss KC," said the con artist with a charming grin as he backed through the doorway, "to you, it's Oliver. Have a wonderful afternoon, ladies, but I _would_ like my guns back."

Trey snorted in the back of my mind as I said wryly, "Shar, return Mr. Taylor his firearms and escort him to his vehicle."

The woman's mouth almost dropped, but she caught herself just in time. "Of course, ma'am."

Because Shar calls me ma'am every time.

The two left the bungalow not long after, Trey tailing them. I watched through his eyes as the two hesitated before the cab. Stray glances lining up, accompanied by the briefest of smiles. One of Shar's awkward half-curtsies later, the yellow vehicle was bouncing along the crooked pavement, tires squalling as the cab driver floored it around the corner—and then Oliver Taylor was gone.

Taking a deep breath, I released it in the form of a sigh a moment later. _Trey, do we need to keep this bungalow for any dire reason?_

 _Not that I can think of. Why?_

I pulled the final piece of my White House entourage—a diamond lighter—from the inside pocket of my blouse. Flicking it open, I watched the flame dance along the body of the translucent material, igniting the crystalline surface in shades of yellow and orange. _It might not be Mr. Taylor who changes his mind._

* * *

 **July 11, 2038; 4:12 P.M.  
Fairfax, Virginia; United States**

One highly amusing phone call later found me in a hotel just outside of D.C. The Renegade held an interesting reputation after busted for consent to prostitution back in the late twenties, and its "reform" era seemed more retrogressive to me.

Sliding the black iPad from my satchel and lofting the latter onto the queen-sized bed, I cast a wary eye about the room. Chocolate walls, matted black carpet, skimpy furniture-

 _The only thing missing is your client,_ Trey mused with a touch of glee.

 _Ass._

In my hand, the graphire purred as it came on, the traditional Apple glowing white against the ebony backdrop. And then the main screen flickered to life, which is where the similarities ended.

You see, being connected to the graphire made yours truly the only person in existence capable of seeing the screen. Most would see a black back-light; I saw a screen-full of raw programming: Trey's hardware. No boxy apps or cutesy background cluttering the screen—just good old-fashioned binary and conversion charts against a dark backdrop.

Balancing the graphire and room key in one hand, I rummaged in my satchel until my fingertips graced the cool surface I sought. The Nitrous Oxide Systems can, ever a gracious relief, was promptly withdrawn, opened, and chugged until every drop had been consumed. I crushed the empty NOS, popped the tab from the can, and slipped the remains back into my bag.

Ah, caffeine...

Speaking of recording memories—I needed to check up on mine. There was still something about Noel's take down that rubbed me the wrong way. Or I was just being paranoid. Again.

One impulse was all it took to bring up Open Office, and the document running in the background. _He Who Knows Me Best_ dwindled on down the screen for a few good pages, but I didn't necessarily need to read them to know what had happened. The document: a simple retelling of my life... in the form of a novel. And since I couldn't write a book if J. K. Rowling herself was sitting next to me, Trey does the honors and edits my senseless babbling, mental narrations, and whatever the heck might show up and start screwing with my mind. Ergo, thank the loctopus for this wonderful pile of shenanigans.

Eyes trailing across the first page, I allowed the words to wash over me as I mumbled them under my breath; "Chapter One: Don't Quit Your Day Job. You're out of ammo and..."

So my life story started all of four hours ago. Sue me.

(...Actually, I figured that since my previous recording ended up reaching two thousand pages in length, it was probably time to open a new document.)

 _KC, you should probably take a look at this._

The pop-up maximized immediately after Trey's words. My eyes scanned the email, and my exact thoughts were as follows: well, _crap_.

 _"_ _Hey, Jessie! :D Sorry if this is a bad time, but I've got someone DYING to meet you! We're still on for lunch tomorrow, right? I've got a meeting until ten, so I might be late. Not ditching you, promise! Cya there, girlfriend~! 3"_

It's atypical for something to be able to email me, no matter how good their hacking skills—since it's all in my head; literally—no one, except for those I accept messages from. Take, for instance, my boss.

I reread the email, frowning at the fake email used and pondering how a new email could get through, before thinking, _Trey, pull up all political and criminal deaths in the past week. Cross-reference them with the Tunnels, see if any of them overlap near Arizona._

 _Gimmie another shot of caffeine and you've got yourself a deal,_ the loctopus began to untangle himself from my scarf.

"Jessie," the universal fake for 'I'm trying to appear casual by using a nickname' but in actuality referring to shit going down. "Dying to meet you" equals someone literally dying or an extreme rush. Given the current circumstances, this could go either way. "Lunch tomorrow"? Our typical meeting spot when out of incognito. But the "meeting until ten" could mean anything.

So much for laying low.

* * *

 **July 12, 2038; 11:56 A.M.  
Middle of Freaking Nowhere, Arizona; United States**

Normally, I loathe driving myself. I've never been a fan of sitting. It leaves you venerable, your center of gravity in your butt, and you can't properly flex to dodge incoming attacks. Hell, I'd much rather be laying flat on my stomach than sitting any day. Unfortunately, with Shar temporarily out of the picture and Alpha attending to Susan, there were no other underlings I "trusted" with my safety. Too many in the mafia would sooner shoot their boss than take a bullet for them.

The horizon wavered in the distance, heat waves distorting the beyond in shimmers resembling the reflections of a haunted house mirror. Though little more than a minor dip in the earth, Nyala had been built on top of one of the few desert oases in Arizona, much like Copperhead; the main difference being that Copperhead was a town and Nyala was an itty bitty restaurant. The diner's outside consisted of bricks, the red color eroded from years of sandstorms, and washed white panels lining the broad windows that encompassed the front. A metal roof slanted away from the windows towards the back at a minor angle. Rusty signs dangled from bent pegs stabbed into the wooden door, one of them proclaiming "open" in all caps. From the outside, it wasn't much to look at.

Dust settled around the Hyundai Genesis as I steered the coupe into the mostly vacant lot. The air conditioning chirped angrily as I cut the engine, which earned a solid smack from yours truly. Truthfully, if it hadn't been a birthday present from Susan, I would have ditched the hunk of metal years ago; the horsepower from its last "tune up" at an associate's auto shop was pretty much all it had going for it these days.

Still grumbling about the faulty antique, I hustled through the blistering one hundred and thirty degrees and through the door in a single, fluid movement. Said movement might have included me kicking in the door in my haste, but you can't prove it.

 _It's hard to get a grip if you're all sweaty…_ grumbled Trey. My external conscious shifted again, aka: stabbed his legs into me.

In the process of readying a badass one-liner, I suddenly found myself unable to breathe when a small girl launched herself out of my blind spot and wrapped me in a smothering embrace.

"Ack-!"

"Auntie Jess!" The unadulterated joy in her voice caught me off guard, and was the only thing that prevented me from flipping her over my shoulder. Hesitant, I waited to be released.

Slender arms uncoiled from around my waist and an auburn-haired child manifested at my side. Large hazel eyes peered up at me with utmost adoration and she folded her hands together behind her back. The neon orange T-shirt she wore looked about three sizes too big and the white basketballs shorts clinging to her tiny frame surpassed her knees by a few good inches.

"Hey there, kiddo." Recovering my wits, I offered a gentle smile, but mentally said, _What the heck? Is this Susan's idea of a joke?_

 _I don't think-_

"C'mon!" A warm hand took mine and the girl began to tug on my sleeve with her free hand using surprising force. "Uncle Al's over here!"

Instantly, my gaze shot upwards. The kid had managed to take me by surprise, distract me from my objective, _and_ interrupt my assessment of today's fellow diners. Luckily for me, a couple sat at the bar facing out of the front windows and the cashier fiddled with the register—three people on the floor, with three more working the kitchen.

Modeled after a classy eighties diner, Nyala's floors had been turned into a giant checkerboard of black and white tiles, the walls painted red and covered in local art, the tables and bar all made from stained oak, its workers all dressed in button-ups, slacks, and visors. A vibrant jukebox huddled in one corner—it hadn't worked in years, but it still added taste to the décor. Five tables in the middle of the room; booths lined the left and right walls; arcade games framed the entrance to the kitchen. Four high-top tables lined the back wall, with one on each side of the bar.

And it was the table in the far corner, tucked just out of sight from the rest of the diner, did one lone figure sit: a blonde man.

I followed the girl (translation compliments of Trey: she allowed the girl to drag her) across Nyala, skirting the bar, until we stood directly in front of the man.

A glance at him confirmed my suspicions. "You've got to be kidding me."

Alpha sat facing the door. At once point, he had been a Secret Service Agent, but now burdened himself with heavy disguise that rivaled my own for Jessica McGee. Alpha's maquillage ensemble patterned over his scars in a distracting tattoo—what little of his face that remained untouched by the dark ink was brightened to accentuate the blue rings in his smoky green eyes; the strands of his lengthy blonde wig had been woven into dreadlocks. I didn't miss the smirk that flashed across the man's face as he shoved a wireless earpiece across the tabletop towards me.

Reminding myself that it was rude to wring the necks of young children in public, I ignored the girl—who was busying herself with attempting to crawl over Alpha's lap to get a seat next to the window— scooped up the earpiece, and put it in.

So sooner than I'd set one foot in the seat and crouched to imitate sitting, did the earpiece crackle to life; "I know what you're about to say, but let me tell you my piece first." Susan's voice, but I knew better than to call her by name.

My resolve hardened by default. "Maggie, we've talked about this. I don't take on apprentices."

"What's an apprentices?" the girl piped up.

Alpha shot me a look that plainly told me that if his lap wasn't full of flailing limbs, he would flip the table and shoot me on the spot. I couldn't blame him.

"Shh, the grown-ups are talking," I said, and then addressed Susan, "She's what—ten? Eleven? You know the kind of life I live. Do you _want_ me to suck out any chance she might have of a normal life?"

"She's a direct descendent of Virginia Hall."

"Oh." Four score and a few centuries ago, Virginia Hall had been one of the first (and best) women spies in American history. Even after her demise, the family still passed on the secrets of their trade, even to those who eventually shunned their ways. But roughly a decade ago, the Halls started working for the mafia. The kid must have been the newest generation.

"Furthermore, she's had some sort of training. I don't know any other six-year-old who can lift as much as me."

I almost slipped out of the booth. "She's six? _Six?_ Maggie, are you crazy?"

"Don't cop that kind of voice with me, young lady; I didn't train her." Susan's words were firm, but her tone teasing.

"What about her parents?" I asked, watching as the girl backed over Alpha's lap and slithered into the floor with an exaggerated groan. The man in question heaved a sigh loudly enough that the couple at the bar turned to look. I waved, and they quickly glanced away.

"They were doing a job in Cuba and both of them dropped dead of simultaneous heart attacks. The coroner reported no signs of foul play, and our own guys agreed. It was sudden, and no cause of death could be determined."

"You shouldn't bite your fingernails. It's bad for your teeth."

My gaze flitted to the side to see the girl staring at me intently. I raised an eyebrow, only then realizing that my thumb had weaseled its way in between my lips—a habit that formed more out of contemplation than anxiety. I pulled it out without further comment and the girl smiled. Then she immediately skipped over to the bar and flung herself on top of a stool with a victorious cheer. (Something about milkshakes...)

"Jessie, please," said Susan, probably mistaking my silence for disagreement. "I know you don't picture yourself as the kind of woman to save the world with a baby on your hip-"

"If I wanted to be a mother, I would have gotten married," I muttered.

"-but Jessica McGee can't keep her country afloat forever. Right now, you're young. You're fit. You could probably climb Mount Everest right now if I asked you to. But what about ten years down the road? Twenty? I know that fifty is the prime age for politics, but I don't think your other half with last that long." My other half being my actual self as KC. "I need assurance that your knowledge and experience won't go to waste."

Two birds, one stone. To Susan, the math must have been perfect. On one hand, I get to learn how to tolerate children; on the other, I get to train a future KC without actually having to give birth. And to add the final straw that broke the camel's back, this is almost Susan's way of getting someone to watch my back without the fear that they won't stab me in the back. Good for me, good for the camel, and good for the President of the United States.

"I'll do it," I said, kicking myself the whole time.

There was a pause. "Really? ...Don't answer that. Just don't shoot her full of holes, okay?"

I cast a glance over my shoulder in time to see the girl dump the entire shaker of salt into the sodapop of the man sitting on her right. She giggled when he didn't notice.

Taking a deep breath, I said, "I make no promises."

It wasn't until after the earpiece fell silence that Trey decided to remind me that I forgot to ask for the girl's name.

* * *

 **July 11, 2038; 4:12 P.M.  
St. George, Utah; United States**

Autumn Virginia Hall was perfectly aware that her parents were dead. She burst into tears within five minutes of being in the car with me. She fell asleep right before we stopped for gas. She woke up and resumed crying when I hit a pothole large enough to hide an overturned motorcycle. By the time we reached the hole-in-the-wall motel, I couldn't tell who was more exhausted: her from crying, me from putting up with her crying, or Trey from having to put up with us both.

I think it's safe to say that I really suck at dealing with kids.

However, as soon as I finished checking the room for bugs, Autumn flung herself face-down onto one of the mattresses and let out a long sigh. I ambled in her wake, pausing as I drew the graphire from its bag, and watched the rising and falling of her back—far too swift to be natural.

 _She lost her parents. Both of them_ , Trey reminded. _Be gentle._

 _Gentle? I work with people who shoot each other in between missions because they get bored. My clients fear me, respect me, and shit their pants when I smile. The closest times I've come to having a "normal" conversation in the past ten years have all been faked. I frequently hook myself to technology that feeds off of me like a parasite and sends bolts of pain through my nerves—and I keep doing it. My life is a whole cockle of crazy, but you want me to be gentle?_

Trey seemed quite smug as he replied, _Yes._

Clearly, my conscience loves me.

I unlocked the graphire and bent down next to the bed. "Hey, kid. This place doesn't have room service, but I can grab you a bite from somewhere else if you're hungry," I offered lamely.

Silence stretched on for a while. After a good ten minutes of hunching over, my back had been reduced to a screaming, burning mess; standing and stretching only temporarily halted the complaints. Just as I made to drop into a crouch, the girl let out a small sigh.

"He told me the job would last a year."

My eyes fell on Autumn's tiny form and watched as the girl rolled over onto her side, one arm bent under her head. Tears pricked the corners of her downcast eyes.

"They were suppose to be back before my birthday," she whispered.

Frozen, I racked my mind and graphire for clues to whom she mentioned. When she didn't add anything, I asked, "Who told you?"

"My caretaker, Mr. Wutt."

'My caretaker,' not my old caretaker. _She still wants to believe it isn't true,_ I realized. _She's still in shock._

"Mr. Wutt told you about your parents' mission?" I asked for clarity's sake.

 _Possible threat to national security. On it, boss._ Trey sent me the image of a salute before diving into the Internet.

Autumn nodded. "They had to go to Cuba, Singapore, and some other place. We were gonna throw them a party when they got back, but… but…" Her jaw trembled. "Now they'll never get to see the present I made for them."

And then, Cassandra Hall's daughter rolled back onto her stomach and began to sob.

I bit my lip. Even though I had seen her cry before, I no longer had the road to draw my eyes, no radio to drown her out, no helping hand to offer. Normal people would have put their arms around a crying child. Normal people would have told her not to cry and that everything would be okay. Normal people might have called this Mr. Wutt and asked him to take her home for the night.

But I wasn't normal.

What right did I have to take this young girl from a life she once knew? She had lost her parents—and apparently her caretaker—but she had been shoved into the arms of a woman with more blood on her hands than all of Congress combined. I couldn't hug her. I couldn't touch her. I was tainted, a thing of filth. Any comfort I provided would be placing myself between her and an incoming bullet, because that's the kind of life I live. It's the kind of life to which I had sold her soul. The daughter of a spy, the apprentice of a triple agent, and she had a say in none of it.

So I crouched on the floor, eyes flickering over the graphire's screen, and waited.

* * *

Four a.m. rolled around before Autumn fell asleep, and I didn't follow suit until another two hours later. Finally, around nine in the morning, I awoke to the sounds of the girl shuffling about the room. Stubbing her toe on the bathroom door ended up being my wake up call, the sharp hiss quickly followed with a hasty apology and sheepish smile. On any other day, I might have been horrified at the thought of falling into so deep a sleep that I didn't hear a six-year-old bumbling about my hotel room, but this morning, all my brain could keep up with was the cheery smile on Autumn's face.

The cheery smile that wasn't faked.

"Morning," she chirped, throwing a thin, sleeve-less top on over her camisole.

After scanning the room with sleep-laden eyes, I returned the favor. "Morning yourself. You sleep okay?"

"More or less," she shrugged. "You left these pointy knife-thingies in the pillow and I couldn't figure out what was poking me in the head until one of 'em got me through the pillow case."

She lifted her bangs out of the way to reveal an inch-long incision on her scalp. It looked shallow, but that didn't stop me from bolting to my feet. My hand found the diamond daggers before my mind could fully process what had happened, and the reintroduction left me with a mark much like Autumn's. I drew back my hand, grumbling at the minor slash, as my other hand drew the blades from the bed sheets.

Whoops. I knew I left those somewhere around here...

"Can I hook up my WiiTii?"

I glanced across the room in time to see the girl pull a honking collection of wires from her backpack. "Your what?"

"WiiTii." A childish gleam lit up Autumn's eyes as the girl flounced over to my side and flopped down on the foot of the bed, crossing her legs. The collection of wires exploded on top of the covers. "It's this really cool version of the Wii that just came out last week. It's got motion sensors and everything!"

In the back of my mind, Trey let loose a splurge of colorful language involving his "arch nemesis;" aka: motion sensors. I caught a growl of, _Fucking hypocrites…_ before the loctopus retracted his talons and slid down my back, out from under my shirt, and bounced against the carpet. He was still running a search for the surname Wutt with a variety of spellings, but nothing of relevance seemed to be coming up. I noticed Autumn's eyes flicker to the loctopus but the apathy of her expression told me that she thought of him as nothing more than a spider.

My sights returned to the splayed wires, a sudden curiosity spiking my interest. "Do you know how to get everything ready?"

Pride. The girl practically oozed it.

"You bet I can!" Autumn launched herself straight from the foot of the bed into a standing position as she hefted the television around. Let me tell you now: it was definitely not a flat screen, but she didn't seem to notice. I meandered over to her side, eyeing the dexterity of her fingers as they unwove the wires, her other hand readying the TV. A certain look glazed over her countenance as she began to feed the wires into the ports at a dizzying speed.

Incredibly strong and now crossing wires like a pro. Susan mentioned training, but some part of me didn't quite picture this aspect.

 _I've got nothing on anyone named Wutt. Not in America, not in the entire world, not ever._ Trey sounded apologetic. _If that_ is _his real name, the guy's completely hidden. Probably the unfortunate descendant of a family bound to serve the Halls._

 _Thanks anyways,_ I thought, momentarily distracted by the blurring of Autumn's hands. _She really knows her way around an electrical system, doesn't she? What's next: minefield-disabling, lock-picking, gun-handling?_

 _She's six,_ said Trey, almost sadly.

 _She's good._

Suddenly, the girl jerked backwards, horror twisting her face. A quiet, "Oops…" was the last thing I heard before a loud crackle shattered the audible silence and a brilliant blue light ruptured across the expanse of my vision.

Then my head violently slammed against the carpeted floor.

* * *

 _ **Stormy's Encyclopedia of Jargon  
(1) **short for 'lock-picking octopus'; KC designed Trey's original form based off of a loctopus from a video game, then realized that she wanted him to do a little more than pick locks-and that she preferred spiders to octopi  
 **(2)**_ _the slang term for one kilo of cocaine_


	2. Insane Persons Need Only Apply

_I totally didn't write this on Saturday and only got around to posting it now. DX Picture this: a laboratory report, two exams, a paraphrasing statement, and a HURRICANE. Just a day in the life of Stormy. (Yeah, I forgot that where I moved to has a bit of a problem with extreme weather conditions. Huh. Smart thinking on my part.)  
_

 _WildfireDreams : Yay! Avid returning readers! I hope this version is a bit more up to par than the ongoing original plotline. A person's writing style can really change in four years._

 _M : Thanks! And trust me when I say that you fool no one. Mwahahaha~_

 _I own very little. The perks of being broke. XD_

* * *

 **Insane Persons Need Only Apply**

 **unknown**

I awoke to my favorite sound in the entire world: the beeping of a heart monitor.

"Doctor, she's coming to-! Vitals are... as well as can be expected." A woman's voice. Unfamiliar. "Should we sedate her?"

"No, no. Let her come to. She's stable, more or less."

"More or less? Dr. Blankenship, how can this woman still be alive? She's been here since New Year's Day, no one's claimed her or the girl, and during that time, her blood sugar levels plummet fatally if we don't give her three glucose drips a day. It's not a form of diabetes or hypoglycemia, and I doubt that one's metabolism can work that efficiently. I've spoke to everyone else about the matter but... they can't figure out it either."

"Three a day?" A rustle of papers. "Let me see her charts." More rustling. "My God... I heard the rumors but this... this is something else. It's almost as if—Dr. Brown, have you tested Jane Doe for worms?"

"The results came back negative. Whatever's draining her of nutrients isn't something we've been able to pick up with normal tests. The only difference between her and anyone else off the streets is that choker she's wearing. The nurses on this floor wanted to take It off, but x-rays showed that inner probes punch straight into her spinal column and nerves. If we take it off, she could die, and for all we know, that thing is all that's keeping her alive."

Sigh. Pause. Rustle, rustle.

"Jane Doe is waking up, but it may take her a while to become fully oriented; I'd like to speak with her as soon as possible. Dr. Brown, tell the front desk to relay to the police that if I deem Jane Doe healthy enough to withstand questioning, she'll be released into their custody in two days at the earliest."

"What about the girl? She's been asking for Ms. Doe, but refuses to give her own name or the woman's."

"Has Social Services sent their agents?"

"I think Alice said that they'd arrive in a couple of hours."

"Thank you, Dr. Brown. I'll handle it from here."

Heels of dress shoes tapping against the tiled floor, a door opening with a creak and slamming, a drawn sigh—then the rest of me began to function. Pain laced every thought and breath, both of which felt extremely lacking. It took the names a moment to process, but neither of them came up familiar with their associated voice. The smell of hospital chemicals—cleansing and the likes—slammed into my unsuspecting nose, and years on the job were all that kept my stomach from revolting. I twitched my fingers and toes, relishing in the tingling sensations as blood began to rush into my limbs, and slowly opened my eyes.

I took a few blinks to dull the whiteness and assure myself that I had not ended up in front of the pearly gates. Rather, I found myself sprawled on an ivory-colored bed, swaddled in equally pale sheets, with a doctor in periwinkle scrubs watching me intently from where he stood by the door.

Hospital. Wonderful. Sometimes I hate being right.

I moaned softly, more for the sake of testing my voice than to express my extreme dislike for large medical facilities.

"How are you feeling?" Doctor Blankenship asked in a soft tone, far quieter than he had been with his coworker.

"Like I got hit by an SUV," I answered honestly. (Sadly, I can say that my description was fairly accurate, as I have actual experience with being on the wrong end of a runaway vehicle.) My throat felt dry and scratchy, leaving me to cough roughly a few times at the lack of lubrication. "Did the ambulance get pummeled on the way over?"

"No," the doctor said with a smile. Pulling a clipboard from the chair at his side, he took the vacant seat and drew a pen from his shirt pocket. "Now, can you tell me your name?"

"Jessica McGee," I said, though it came out as more of a grunt. For some reason, I couldn't get up properly and it took me a few seconds more to notice the thick straps restraining my arms and legs. An exasperated groan left me before I could help it.

Doctor Blankenship noted my struggle with an air of indifference as he added my "real name" to the top of the paper. "How old are you?"

Snorting softly, I raised an eyebrow and asked, "Isn't it rude to ask for a woman's age?" When he stared blankly, I sighed and amended, "Thirty-one."

"Do you know what year it is?"

What, did they think I had amnesia? "2038."

He froze, pen quavering above the paper as his eyes shot upwards. "I beg your pardon?"

"2038," I repeated, returning my focus on the straps. Velcro, by the looks of it, but the ones around my wrists had buckles.

"Do you know who the current President is?" Dr. Blankenship asked uneasily.

 _What's with him? It's like he was expecting something different for the year..._ I frowned but verbally relayed, "Susan Robinson." _Trey, are you getting this?_

He blanched. "Vice president?"

"Wallace Truman." The fool... But he had helped balance out Susan's ticket when she ran for office.

"Secretary of Defense-?"

"Marcus Day." Another fool, but at least he had a sense of humor.

"Head of Homeland Security...?" the good doctor asked weakly.

"Loretta Mayfield." Though given as an answer, I presented it as more of a question.

Doctor Blankenship leaned forward, so much so that I could make out the beginnings of deep wrinkles tracing the contours of his aging face. Fatigue plagued his eyes, the dark irises appearing more black then brown. The unforgettable scent of Vaseline momentarily overran the ocean of cleansing products; his hands looked well-worn under his transparent gloves. Scrubs riddled with awkward creases and faint discolorations, the clothes stood out against the whitewashed walls and pastel chairs lining the far wall. The poor guy must have been working one of those thirty-six hour shifts. However, his appearance came nowhere close to the lack of force in his next words as he dared to ask, "And who would be the most... _qualified_ international detective?"

Here, I almost grinned. One thing I loved about being me: Jessica could play the goody-two-shoes for the federal government, KC could toy with the morons of the underground, but not a single person could deny that one persona was slightly more efficient than the other.

"KC, of course," I replied, masking my pride behind a countenance of apathy.

Because no one was daunted by the President's lapdog, but people tended to roll over or try to fight when faced with a more... persuasive woman.

Instantly, Dr. Blankenship's face fell and I knew that there was more off than the answer I had just fed him.

"Doctor?" I recognized the distinct voice of Dr. Brown a nanosecond before she slipped into the room, the hinges of the door shrieking as she closed it behind her. The blonde cast me a curious look before adding, "The girl wants to see her."

Before anyone could reply, or I could give a thought to the matter of said girl, Autumn Virginia Hall herself blew into the room with the force of a hurricane and threw herself on top of me with a delighted squeal.

"Auntie Jess!"

The hug caught me by surprise and I felt my lungs being permanently crushed one millimeter at a time. My vision swam in shades of red until the girl launched herself backwards into a standing position at the bedside, opened her mouth, and let loose with the longest speech to ever originate from a single breath of air.

"Oh my gosh, I was so worried when they told me you were in intensive care and then you didn't come out when they said you would and I thought you had died and I wasn't allowed to see you because by the time they moved you into not-so-intensive care, the police were here and people kept asking me weird questions that made me upset and they wanted to take me away since you didn't wake up and we were here for like two weeks and would have died if that room cleaning person at the hotel hadn't have found us and we were like charred and stuff and I got worried 'cause you didn't wake up and I didn't wanna be alone!"

I'll be damned. Girl certainly brings a new meaning to the phrase, "If you can't dazzle the world with your knowledge, baffle its inhabitants with your bullshit." The sad part? I couldn't tell what parts the kid was faking and what parts she actually meant. Or maybe I was overestimating her acting abilities. Did small children even _have_ acting abilities? Did she even know what was going on?

Child rearing is obviously not on my lengthy list of qualifications. Why did Susan think this would be a good idea?

Covering my own rear, I smiled gently and said, in the tone of a concerned aunt, "It's alright, sweetie, I'm awake now. Sorry for worrying you. Are you feeling okay?"

Autumn nodded and sat back down on the bed, snuggling up against my side. "Uh huh, but I'd feel a whole lot better if people would stop trying to ask me stuff. I don't like their questions."

So the doctors probably had the same reaction to her answers as Doctor Blankenship. Interesting. But not in a good way.

"You're not supposed to be in here right now," warned Dr. Blankenship, attempting to speak softly, as though to earn her trust.

"But she's my auntie!" Autumn retorted sharply, much to the man's surprise. "'Sides, I don't take up a lotta room so I'm won't be in the way much."

The doctors exchanged a glance, oblivious to the fact that the six-year-old seemed completely unfazed by their words. Before either of them could make a fool of themselves, I rested my hand on Autumn's shoulder and whispered, "C'mon, kiddo. The doctors need to examine me before they'll let me go home. It'll probably be long and boring, and I heard that a secret agent was coming to take you someplace cool until I can get out. Wouldn't you like to stretch your legs?"

Either the girl in her didn't get the hint or the spy in her wouldn't let her take the offer; "I don't wanna go with some weird person," Autumn pouted. "Adults keep asking me the same questions and won't tell me anything but 'don't worry; it'll be okay.' Can't we just go home?"

Were I by myself, like I was used to, skipping out on this joint would have been a piece of cake, but if I had to carry this kid around, Plan A was a definite bust. Besides, I could always get her back from Social Services (and wipe our medical records) once I was out. Kidnapping—even benevolent kidnapping—wasn't my cup of tea, but I had the necessary experience and enough common sense to pull it off.

"Like I said, the doctors need to make sure that I'm all healthy before they release me, but we'll leave as soon as we can," I promised, though I'd probably regret it later.

"Yay!" Autumn laid down next to me and cuddled closer until was practically curled up on my lap. For a moment, I felt tempted to ask her to free my hands, but the second look exchanged by the doctors stopped me cold.

Oh, right. Police. The bobbies had an audience with yours truly.

 _We have to get out of here. Trey, wake your lazy ass up! I'll get some caffeine as soon as I get out of here._ When I received no reply, I added, _Actually, I'll come get you, wherever the hell you are, and_ then _I'll get caffein._

 _Sorry. Can't say much. Being watched. But I'd appreciate a rescue ASAP._

 _Rescue?_

"Well, the tests shouldn't take long, but we should probably get an MRI," said Dr. Brown, pursing her lips.

Yes. Let's lock the woman with a strip of metal attached to her neck into a giant machine that works via magnets. What could possibly go wrong?

"Can I go to the bathroom before then?" I asked, being sure to add the right amount of hesitation. No good in plotting and scheming if someone's on to you from the beginning.

Dr. Blankenship nodded and ventured over, unlatching the straps and ripping away the Velcro in loud jerks. (So were the straps to keep me from hurting myself or to hold me until the police arrived?) "You might be a little unstable on your feet at first. Do you want anyone to help you?"

"Nah." I flexed my arms. Gently pushing the kid aside, I rolled off of the bed and into a crouch, all in one fluid movement. Ignoring Dr. Brown's dropping jaw, I shot Dr. Blankenship a smile. "I think I can handle myself."

The look on his face came _this close_ to cracking me up.

Yeah, my knees felt a little wobbly and my head spun more than I liked, but walking was doable. Feeling gradually returned to my bumbling feet as they slipped over the slick tiled floor. It took a good thirty seconds, but I finally made it to the bathroom door. Turning, I flashed the doctors a thumbs up.

"Ten-four." I grinned.

The good docs exchanged another conspiring glance before Dr. Brown addressed Autumn, "How about coming and hanging out with me until your…"

"Aunt," supplied Autumn.

"-Until your aunt clears her tests?"

As discreetly as I could, I mouthed 'lobby' and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear as an excuse to block my face from the doctors'. Lady Luck must have realized just how much I hated hospitals and decided to bless me with her gorgeous light; Autumn shook her head and asked, "Can I just wait in the lobby? I don't wanna go anywhere until I know Auntie Jess will be okay."

Damn. Kid's got good peripheral vision. I added another trait to her ever-lengthening list of enhanced talents.

Dr. Brown took a deep breath. "If the agent says it's okay, I have no problem with it."

Note to self: today I have to dodge the police, the Social Services, and the typical hospital staff. Note to self part two: find a phone and call Shar.

 _Trey, answer me. Are they recording your communications array?_

 _Movements and radioactivity._

Which sadly meant that he was probably in quarantine. Yes, my AI conscious is radioactive, but I don't need to explain myself to you.

Closing the bathroom door behind me, I flicked on the light and glanced around. The lavatory had been combined; the shower head dangled from the wall, the entire floor tilted towards the drain in the center, with a toilet next to the spout and a sink on the other side, an oval mirror positioned on the far wall. The setup reminded me of a European bathroom where the showers consisted of the entire bathroom to conserve space. Sadly, I didn't believe this to be a hospital in Europe. The smells were all wrong. Eleven ceiling tiles, one hole for the fan, and a single cord dangling down (the emergency call).

Yeah, I could do this without the graphire.

When I dropped to the floor, all I could hear where the soft sounds of breathing as the trio abandoned the room. Such polite people there were, going outside to wait for me to do my business.

"Sucks to be them."

* * *

 **roughly two weeks after New Year's Day  
St. George, Utah; United States**

"Why did we have to climb out the window?" Autumn questioned as we hurried through the streets of the St. George.

People jostled us from side to side as each footstep took us further and further from Dixie Regional Medical Center. We had five more minutes at best before they noticed us missing and starting searching, and maybe thirty minutes before handing over our identities to John Q. Public to assist in our seizure. So not only had I compromised our covers, but now we had to find Trey and get the hell out of Dodge.

Assuming the loctopus decided to participate and tell us where he was.

"One typically can't leave the hospital until people in said hospital decide that you're healthy enough not to die on them," I answered offhandedly, hand fastened unyieldingly to her shoulder, "and I'm not really a fan of the police."

"What about Social Services?"

"Pushovers. All of them."

Snow bore down on us, the minuscule humans, as the majority of the population scattered about the streets without seeking cover. At my side, Autumn tugged up the collar of my jacket, her teeth chattering loudly enough to be heard over the dull roar of the crowd. I busied myself with trying _not_ to freeze in my sleeveless turtleneck and locating my perfect, and somewhat uncooperative, other half.

 _Trey, send me your coordinates._

The loctopus complied all too easily for the rebellious little devil I know him to be.

"Shit. Well, at least we don't have to pay a visit to the Pentagon," I sighed, matching the longitude and latitude with the given address.

"Huh?" Autumn risked a glance in my direction.

Oh, right. No swearing around kids. Bad examples, and all that jazz. "We have to nab a lazy… _colleague_ of mine who seems to have worked himself into a pickle," I explained begrudgingly. On second thought, I added, "Got any B &E skills?"

* * *

 **later that day  
Washington, Utah; United States**

My view on police officers was forever ruined during a particularly grueling case I worked as the federal investigator McGee. Suspected treason in the White House, faked intelligence killing our foreign spies, our domestic sleepers going missing—fun stuff like that. But I had been getting close. Considering that the Department of Homeland Security had tried to nip this in the bud and simultaneously screwed up our relations with Spain, the fact that I had made more progress than them in a week and a half than they had in five months made me especially happy; the fact that I wasn't a fan of their director at the time was just a bonus and sadly not my own doing. But in the end, the D.C. police had barged in at the last possible second, shot my only suspect, and tried to pin the blame on me. Two days before the court date, the bodies of the corrupt officers were found in a ditch across the road form the White House, their heads stabbed onto spears. In court, a man named Oliver Taylor was accused of pitting the government against itself and the murders of Officers Pyles and Yale, but got off scott-free when spontaneous evidence saved his ass and mine. Turned out, the cops had been gang members attempting to infiltrate the police department and later, the FBI _and_ the undercover assholes just so happened to be working for a dealer who wanted high-profile connections. Two weeks later, Mr. Taylor approached me with the alias of his employer and demanded a million dollars in hush money; I sent the Blacksmith the corpses of the Colombian and Argentinean drug lords in the back of a very nice hearse. Needless to say, we've been "friends" ever since.

My life in a nutshell.

I was twenty-seven at the time.

Hovering across the street from the police station, I surveyed my surroundings with a wary eye, though faking a delighted smile as I checked my watch, whose reflective glass face I used to look over my shoulder.

The nth district of the police had been crammed on the south side a little past the downtown area, just out of the way to avoid the masses of rush hour, but close enough to hop to any emergency. Two buildings dared to hover nearby: a boutique farther up the street and a family-owned bank directly across the road from the station. All three structures in the immediate vicinity had been painted a dull grayish-tan with darker speckles, their white doors and aluminum rooftops equally bland. At a glance, one might have mistaken them for rather large houses, for the streets signs were pretty much all the public had to go on. The parking lots for both bank and police station left no extra spaces, but having taken a taxi to a small café two blocks over, I needn't worry.

Sipping my second double-large slushie (one at the café, one to go), I felt the energy gratefully returning to my body, which had been running on fumes up until now. With my weapon of choice (orange-flavored Monster) concealed in my hoodie and my reluctantly-accepted apprentice hidden out of harm's way, I felt more in my element than I had in a while.

So I might be an adrenaline junkie, but I'm the best damn junkie at dealing with her addiction in the history of the world.

I flicked my wrist, discreetly checking the coast, and crossed the street. First rule of super sleuthing: blend in. Blending in does not include suspicious glances or the wringing of one's hand or jerkiness of movements. Forget hiding behind dumpsters or decal-ing your getaway car with paint that dissolves in water—all you really need to avoid detection is plain old common sense and the underestimated ability to read body language. Real people, when executing their actions correctly, can make James Bond look like a fool.

Now, that doesn't mean that you're not allowed to have quirky gadgets.

As soon as I polished off the drink, I lobbed it into the nearest trashcan and pulled out a pack of chewing gum. Much to my dismay, everything in my pockets (and Autumn's entire suitcase) had been confiscated upon induction into ICU and handed over to the police as "evidence." This included Trey, the graphire, the diamond daggers and lighter, my "homemade" exploding bubble gum, the acidic glow-sticks (fun back story, that), and the combat boots in whose heels I had hidden my "illegal drug store." To make a long story short, I was left to improvise with whatever I could conjure up in between leaving the kid at that café and now.

Thank God I majored in chemistry.

Popping a piece of fruity goodness into my mouth, I kept careful count of the seconds as I made my way through the parking lot of the bank. Second rule of super sleuthing: don't be obvious. As soon as my count reached thirty seconds, I spat out the gum back into the wrapper and lobbed it at the front door; the wrapper bounced up to the door where it hit the bottom panel and halted. Then I turned and, with no hesitation whatsoever, began to skip up the street towards the boutique.

By the time the explosion went off, I had pulled a black cashmere sweater off the rack and was in the process of finding an open dressing stall.

Instantly, the customers let out loud exclamations and a herd of rubberneckers rushed to the windows. The two ladies previously slumped behind the front desk leaped up as if someone had lit a fire under their stools and quickly pressed their noses against the glass. During the commotion, I transferred the energy drink to the waistband of my jogging pants, ditched the hoodie on a clothes hanger and tossed it into an occupied stall, slipped the sweater over my head, grabbed a wig as I blew past the manikins, and snagged a large satchel on my way out of the back door. Sure, I set off the fire alarm, but by that point, the majority of the people were on the opposite side of the store, peering out at the front of the bank going up in flames. Sirens overtook the crowd's commotion within the minute, and the wailing only grew louder as I stepped outside and closed the door firmly behind me. From there, I slipped the Monster into the satchel and went about my merry way.

In my peripheral vision, cops exploded from the station and flooded the street. Some went straight to the scene of the crime; others began to set up a blockade; a rare few spoke into their walkie-talkies and whipped out their pistols as though the perpetrator would emerge from the bank at any minute. Over thirty of them exited the police station, but not a one of them kept their eyes peeled towards the back door.

Naturally, I waltzed up behind the nearest officer—who happened to be hovering from a distance and was using his common sense to call an ambulance—and discreetly slipped the taser from his belt. Like a good little martyr, I waited until he finished the call before I locked his neck in my arms and introduced my knee to his head. The poor guy literally didn't see it coming; he slumped into my arms, leaving me to drag him out of sight behind the bushes lining the outside of the station building. It took no more than a heartbeat for me to ensnare his wrists in his own handcuffs. Swiping his badge and belt, I shoved the latter into the satchel and looped the former around my neck. With luck, his friends wouldn't have memorized his number. I wasn't really in the mood to deal with an angered officer.

From there, I hustled straight through the side door.

To say that the boutique was a commotion would have been accurate, but the police station made said commotion seem as passive as a funeral progression. Officers trampled from one section of the building to another with no regard for anyone's toes. Files flew over cubical dividers, frantic shouting actually managed to drown out the sirens, and off to one side, the fax machine spewed papers from its over-capacity catch tray and onto the floor. Dodging a foursome of detectives dressed in matching plaid suits, I slithered through the crowd, picking up random files as I went. Whenever someone made to stop me, I yelled over the noise, "Have you seen the sheriff? Tell him the FBI is asking for jurisdiction!" which would successfully piss off everyone in the immediate vicinity.

For a good two minutes—that I spent scrambling over and around bodies—it seemed almost impossible to locate the stairwell. It wasn't until the deputy exploded into the building to tell the officers to get outside and set up a perimeter that I could fight my way through the masses and onto the steps. Sliding down the handrail, I burst through the double doors at the bottom, years of training being all that kept me from running face-first into the mesh of steel surrounding the desk.

"Hi," I said, genuinely breathless.

A man glanced up from the television sitting on the far corner of his desk. If I tilted my head just right, I could make out a news station's footage rolling a live screening of the mayhem outside.

"Hi," he returned, straightening his tie.

"Deputy called everyone outside to help set a perimeter. Told me to fetch you, something about you having experience and this being my first day," I explained quickly, propping myself on the ledge with locked arms.

The guard flashed me a smile—dear God, actual flirting; somebody shoot me—and crooned, "I'm very fetching, aren't I?" At my exasperated eye-roll, he added in a drawl, "Just be sure to keep a close eye on the evidence. Jennings will have my head if any more shit goes missing."

The next minute lasted a good hour as the security guard gathered himself, cast one last glance at the TV screen, and bumbled up the stairs to help.

Mentally punching the air, I slid myself behind the desk and immediately swiveled the desk chair around to face the many televisions positioned against the solid edges of the metal cage. What little solid wall surrounded the space had been completely covered in television sets, angled expertly so that they were unable to be seen by anyone standing outside of the enclosure. Then again, to anyone else, these were just surveillance tapes.

Five minutes later landed me solidly in the yellow. Tapes wiped, police badge tucked into a spare evidence locker, Trey clambering out of the recently vacated metal basket—yeah, life was good. Stuffing my satchel with a few other things (ammo, an extra pistol, a taser, pepper spray, another pistol, more ammo), I graciously collected the graphire from a separate locker and added it to the collection in my fat bag. Only once I secured my newfangled [and recently reunited] gear to my person did I pull the cords to the current tapes, blackening the TV screens, toss Trey loosely onto my shoulder, and make for the back door. Opening it set off yet another alarm, but I grabbed a stick of _my_ gum from the pack, spit on it, and wedged it between the door and its frame.

The second explosion of the day occurred twenty minutes later; I had long since tucked myself away in another quaint hotel with Autumn in another town on the outskirts of Washington.

The girl herself now sat on the foot of the bed, watching me with wide eyes as I emptied the satchel onto the quilt. Police and previous equipment spilled out and I proceeded to check all of the ammunition magazines, crouching so that everything was eye-level on the bed. Trey adjusted his position between my shoulder blade for the millionth time since his "rescue," and the loctopus had no qualms about jabbing me none-too-gently with every moment. Once I was satisfied that everything was in working order, I began to load most things back into the bag before I felt a bit of Trey's arrogance falter.

 _Uh... Houston? We have a serious problem._

 _Police didn't like me blasting a hole in their back door?_

 _Well, no, but that's not what I meant. You know how it's supposed to be two weeks after New Years?_ Were he human, Trey might have taken a deep breath. _We haven't been in a coma since July and only recently been moved to Dixie Regional._

 _Trey, just tell me the date,_ I instructed with far more patience than I knew I possessed.

 _January fifteenth... 2007._

The bag slipped from my hands and landed on the bed.

"KC?" Autumn peered up at me.

What... the fuck.

"Um... are you okay? You're really pale."

"Hey, kid, can you run downstairs and grab a newspaper?"

"Sure!" The door slammed in her wake, but all I could do was stare at nothing in particular.

 _Trey..._

 _I'm not screwing with you, KC. I'm checking everything on the net but every soul on Planet Earth swears that we're not even a full decade into the twenty-first century. There's nothing from 2008, much less 2038._

We traveled back in time. We were electrocuted... and traveled back in time.

...What?

 _And it gets worse. First of all, we didn't go back in time._

I abruptly reached behind my head and yanked the loctopus out into view. To his credit, he didn't cower in my palm when I glared down at him.

"Elaborate, and elaborate quickly."

Instead of replying, Trey forwarded what seemed like half of the Internet directly into my brain. Images of people and inventions and web pages and calenders with models and current events and this one weird MySpace page ranting about the injustices of playing God. And while everything consistently told me that it was the year 2007, everything also told me that we hadn't traveled back in time.

Because most of history was different.

Half of the American Presidents since World War II, famous musical artists, medical advancements—gone and replaced with people and things I'd never even heard of. Apparently, the Cold War hadn't been an actual war here. The current world leaders for this time period were all foreign to me, no pun intended. And furthermore, there was a different detective's name floating around the darker corners of the web, and let me tell you right now, I didn't recognize it to be a single one of my aliases.

Autumn came through the door at that exact moment, and I almost didn't notice. She was so quiet that the only thing that alluded to her return was the soft click of the door as it closed. When I lifted my eyes to her face, sheer bemusement drained every other emotion from her expression. Then she looked me straight in the eye and asked, "How did the newspaper people get the date _this wrong?_ There isn't even a seven in 2038."

Crap on a stick.

* * *

 **January 15, 2007; 11:43 P.M.  
Hurricane, Utah; United States**

It was late. It was dark. It was cold. _I_ was cold. The thermostat was broken. The kid wouldn't go to sleep. Also, the car I'd "borrowed" to get to the hotel in the first place had run out of gas when I'd driven back into Washington in an attempt to buy warmer clothes; I had had to walk back, in the snow, for the full five miles because in Utah, nobody seemed to understand the point of hitchhiking. Now I was cold, I was tired, the clothes had gotten soaked on the way back so nobody could wear them, the kid was driving me up the walls again, we had magically teleported into the past of another universe, and _damn it all_ , I just wanted a NOS and a bag of Pixie Sticks.

Look out, world. Uber-bitch KC has been unlocked.

 _Look on the bright side—things could always be worse,_ Trey said, nuzzling the back of my neck affectionately as he began to shut down his systems. _At least your brain didn't get electrocuted into mush. Then you'd be stranded_ and _stupid._

 _Thanks for the wise words of encouragement._ _Maybe you'd like to be of some help and-_

 _Nopeitty nope nope nope. I'm getting on the Nope Train to Nopeville and nope-ing all the way there,_ he said. _Nap time. Ciao_ , _amica._

Recalcitrant AI didn't even need sleep. Figures.

"KCCCCCCCC," Autumn all but whined. "Can I at least watch TV?"

I took a very deep breath and reminded myself that it was wrong to kill people, small children included. "I'm working on how to get us home and the television would be distracting me." Not to mention that without Trey to help me regulate my incoming signals, I might accidentally start picking up on the TV's channels instead of my research websites.

"Pleeeeeeeeaaasssseeee?" she begged. "I promise to keep the volume really low!"

It was like she didn't understand the kind of situation we were.

But on the other hand, a happy child was a child that required less pampering. Less pampering meant more focus put towards problem-solving.

"Fine," I relinquished with a drawn sigh, "but mute the TV and put on subtitles if you can't lipread."

Autumn complied all too easily and spent the next few minutes burrowed under the blankets without another peep. Once I was certain that she wouldn't try to interrupt my train of thought again, I let my mind wander back to the task at hand.

Electrocuted in 2038. Teleported into a different reality in 2007. Where was the logic in that? For someone who didn't believe in the supernatural, I could state with great sincerity that all of this was a little beyond my comprehension. My problems were generally solved with money, bullets, or a devilish smile, but I highly doubted that any of that would solve the problem now.

I was in over my head.

Furthermore, I was in over my head with a six-year-old noose tied around my neck.

Susan, why the hell did you think this would be a good idea?

 _Susan!_ I realized with a jolt. The President of the United States was supposed to be signing a treaty in Japan right now... or least she was back in 2038. If it was January 2007, then Susan would be... four and a half years old?

Schist. I couldn't exactly ring up my high school friend and ask for a little guidance if she had even less mental capacity than my apprentice.

This was a little too much, even for me. Even for Jessica McGee. Brilliance be damned, experience was worth zilch since I kind of flunked Blind Faith 101. Worm holes were conspiracies created by mathematicians who wanted an excuse to seem smarter than the average bear; ghosts were lazy-ass explanations created by people too ruled by fear to try to solve the mystery; psychics never had to mind to lose in the first place because they were all batshit crazy to begin with; other worlds were created by dreamers who lived with their heads in the clouds because their imaginations could conjure up far better worlds in which to live. "Supernatural occurrences" were what kept some people sane, but tore others' sanity to shreds. It simply didn't exist, didn't occur, never happened, and most certainly could never, under any circumstance, happen to me.

So how the hell was this possible?

I inhaled slowly and watched my exhale fog up the glass of the hotel window. In the distance, I could see the lights of Washington, fighting through the snow and the fog. Three little towns, all in a row: St. George, Washington, and Hurricane. And not one hundred miles in the opposite direction lied Las Vegas.

I had never seen so much snow this close to Vegas.

Running a hand down my face, I was beginning to understand why Trey shut down—a part of me was shutting down, simply because I couldn't process this. My mental capacity had reached its threshold. What I really needed was a second brain, a good night's sleep, a small cache of Pixie Sticks, and a few more energy drinks... but not necessarily in that order.

Sleep was a sound first.

Glancing at Autumn, I saw that the kid was already fast asleep. She had drawn the covers right up under her chin and wore a tiny smile on her round face.

If all kids were this cute when they slept, _and_ this quiet...

Nah. Still wouldn't be worth it. No kids for KC.

Grabbing the extra bedding from the closet, I wrapped myself into a human burrito in an attempt to fight off the cold and tried to ignore the fact that the carpet smelled of cheap cigars and aged perfume.

* * *

 **January 16, 2007; 6:45 A.M.  
Hurricane, Utah; United States**

I found the solution to our little 'trapped in an alternate universe' problem, and by solution, I meant the means to find our solution. Or rather, fate dropped the means right into my lap when I awoke the following morning to see Autumn still curled up in bed, watching the news with a puzzled expression.

"Charles, this could very well be the most internationally-recognized battle since the second World War," said the woman onscreen. I realized, with a bit of a wry chuckle, that I owned that exact blue blouse. Except I called it vintage. At least the clothing trends didn't seem to have differed from one 2007 to the other.

"But can we even call this a battle? It's between two people: L and Kira. Two different forms of justice colliding." The man shook his head and pushed bulky frames farther up on his nose. "I don't know, Annette. Frankly, I just wish it didn't feel like Kira was holding the world hostage."

His coworker seemed to let out an exaggerated sigh. "So far, Kira has only killed people who have committed serious crimes against humanity. Besides, what kind of death is more humane than a heart attack?"

"Are you saying you support Kira?" the man's jaw dropped.

Annette quickly shook her head. "I'm just saying that there are two sides to every coin. Between L's reputation and Kira's motive, I have to say that ever since their throw-down back in December, the crime rate has dropped significantly. Maybe this rivalry will have a similar positive outcome."

L. I recognized that alias from Trey's search of this world's Internet. L: the internationally-renowned investigator, nicknamed the World's Greatest Detective. A super-sleuth in his own right and one hundred percent anonymous.

But "Kira" was completely new to me. And did that woman just suggest that Kira somehow inflicted heart attacks in order to kill criminals? Hold on. Wasn't that somewhat _my_ job? "If you can't beat them, join them, then take over;" was my own little motto when I entered the business of organized crime. How else to quickly remove scumbags from this planet without a man—or woman—on the inside?

Damn. So now I've been replaced twice. Jessica McGee by this L, and KC by this Kira. Somehow, I felt slightly more offended by Kira, because gosh darn it, Jessica McGee was just a pretty mask I wore, but I actually _was_ KC. Katheryn Freaking Carpenter. Nice to meet you.

Wait. How exactly would someone kill by causing a heart attack? Some kind of chemical, perhaps, or a weak defibrillator?

I grabbed the remote and unmuted the television, mostly because I didn't want to risk misreading the news anchors' lips. Unfortunately, they'd already moved on to "more pressing information," aka: traffic. Slightly annoyed, I tossed the remote on the foot of the bed and looked over at Autumn. The kid gave me a little smile before sitting up and pushing aside the covers.

"How you feeling?" I asked, in as much of a mothering tone as I could conjure.

"Not as cold," she said after a moment of thought.

She was right. It was a little warmer in the hotel today.

"Um... what are we going to do now?" she asked quietly.

Oh, yeah. Trapped in another world.

"I assume you want to go home," I said in a grunt, retrieving the graphire and leaning against the TV stand.

Autumn nodded.

"How about you go take a bath and I'll let you in on the whole path once you're all clean and dressed."

"Okie dokie!"

Smooth. I had bought myself a good twenty minutes, give or take, to pull a plan out of my rear end and hope it was somewhat sensible. Then again, why did I even care what the kid thought? She'd probably go along with anything I tell her and I wouldn't even have to give a reason in the first place. Then again, it would be wrong would give her false hope. Then again, did six-year-olds need help bathing themselves?

Parenting. Bleh.

No sooner than the lavatory door bang shut did I bellyflop onto the bed and force Trey into rebooting. _Up and at 'em, Sleeping Beauty. We need a ride back to 2038, so get your butt in gear._

 _Slave driver..._ Trey muttered. _So how do you propose we go about hopping universes? Asking our local psychic? Bribing a demigod? Visiting every church in the area to pray?_

 _You're awfully snide this morning,_ I noted absentmindedly as I skimmed a few more websites in search of information.

 _I'm rescanning the entire Internet because everything's different. Core processors are bitching at me about being overworked,_ he replied wryly.

 _Didn't think your core processors had their own opinions._

 _If human intestines can have an opinion with all the ruckus they make, I'm allowed to pretend my own inner makeup has its own say about life. At least I don't get diarrhea._

He had a point.

 _So how_ are _you planning to get home? Or are we just making this up as we go along?_

I felt my gaze being tugged back to the TV screen. _A little bit of both, I believe._

Trey read my thoughts and promptly burst out laughing. The loctopus's version of laughter is similar to the sound a car makes when its gears grind in a manual transmission. It reminded me of my Hyundai on its more... difficult days. Regardless, that laugh takes some getting used to either way.

But frankly, I'd like to see Trey take the wheel once in a while. Maybe he'd be less apt to criticize.

 _This isn't criticism, hon. This is classic schadenfreude,_ he said by means of answer.

I chose to ignore him in favor of pulling up the World Wide Web and scouring its contents. Finally, I managed to locate a leaked video of a Japanese broadcast aired back on December fifth. At first, I merely listened to it as I continued my search, only for me to pause clip and replay the entire video without any distractions. The second time through, I gave one hundred percent of my focus to the controlled chaos on the graphire's screen.

" _But I assure you that L is real—I am real. I do exist. Now... try and kill me!_ "

L was either the most suicidal, asinine detective I'd ever encountered or the most brilliant.

And he forced Kira's hand on national television.

It was a broadcast aired only in Kanto, originally planned to be shown around the entire world until the entity known as Kira would shown himself. Kira, having previously believed to have been little more than a series of unrelated heart attacks, was proven real, just like L. And overnight, both names had swept the globe when prior to the broadcast, few people knew of either existence.

But L did in ten minutes what the entire International Criminal Police Organization had been struggling to even consider for weeks, and then some. Fifty-two deaths at the time, with many more unknown. Criminals around the world dropping dead like flies with the only connection being their cause of death: a heart attack. But all it took was one little broadcast to begin the manhunt for Kira.

Damn.

In this world, the Blacksmith didn't exist. I had no supreme dealer to whom to turn for supplies, but more importantly: my semi-nemesis was nowhere to be found. In other words, I didn't have to worry about playing nice all of the time. If I wanted "help," I could go to whomever I wanted without fearing a bullet in the back. This world wasn't as developed. It lacked serious class and execution. However, L seemed to operate outside the sphere of society. He bowed to no man, kissed no one's shoes, and wasn't swayed by money or power. He did his job, accepted his reward, and went about his merry way without ever revealing his name or face.

 _This is almost as bad a plan as throwing me at Matthew Noel,_ Trey pointed out.

True. But this plan had something that plan didn't;

Another genius mind to work a separate angle.

And it was at that very moment that Autumn stumbled from the bathroom, a toothbrush sticking out of her mouth. She mumbled a low "ow" around the toothbrush and rubbed at her foot, the sleeve of her over-sized T-shirt sliding down her arm. It suddenly occurred to me that the kid had a lot of clothes that seemed too big for her—and very masculine. And to think I walked five miles in the snow for two oversized coats and snow-boots.

"You ready for my master plan?" I asked in what I hoped to be a playing tone.

Autumn nodded.

"First," I held up a finger, then pointed at Autumn, "we need to get you clothes fit for action. As of right now, we're playing the ultimate game of hide and seek, so we'll need to clothes that'll help us blend in. Furthermore, they'll need to be durable, and preferably something suitable for running."

She stared. "What's 'furthermore' mean?"

I faltered. "Um... 'in addition'?"

"Okie dokie." Curiosity satisfied, the child flopped down on the foot of the bed and scrubbed away at her teeth. "So who're we playing with?"

It took me a moment to translate toothbrush-talk, but then I replied in kind; "A very smart man—maybe even this smartest in this world. I figured that I could make a very interesting proposition that involved me doing him a favor and us going home."

"What's 'proposition' mean?"

"...An offer."

"That's weird."

I wasn't sure what I wanted to do more: throw a dictionary at the kid in the vain hope she might learn via osmosis or crush Trey in the palm of my hand when he started snickering.

"After we get you some clothes, we'll be heading to Los Angeles," I continued, trying to ignore my rising blood pressure.

"Why?"

Here, I grinned. After all, L may have some nerve pulling that televised stunt, but for all I knew, he was nothing more than a hoax. A stand-in hero. Or worse: an organization of people with an ulterior motive. It's hard to imagine such a pure, determined form of justice without picturing corruption hovering overhead. Basically, we knew nothing about L, including his thoughts on interstellar travel. We needed an informant, someone close to L, someone who could provide us with more information than John Q Public.

Fortunately for Trey's extensive hacking, I now knew _exactly_ who that person was.

"We have to pay a visit to the one person with connections to L," I said. "Very few people in the world even know he exists. In fact, of the few people who know of this "special case," one of them is missing and the other is L himself. In other words, I highly doubt that anyone trying to find L would have even heard of him."

"Who is this person?" Autumn asked, and I could practically taste the curiosity bleeding into her words.

"Just your average schizophrenic serial killer," I said with a bit of a smirk. After all, dealing with these kinds of people just so happened to be my specialty. "But he prefers the name Beyond Birthday."


	3. Plan B

_This took forever and a century. Working around time zones is brutal. A shout out to everyone who reviewed/favorited/followed/viewed this - you guys are awesome!_

 _WildfireDreams : Lookie! I wrote this chapter the way I always wanted to write it! XD Hopefully, it's better than chapter four of the original, especially since I finally keep my promise._

 _Me? Owning Death Note? You flatter me~  
_

* * *

 **Plan B  
**

 **January 16, 2007; 8:23 P.M.  
Downey, California; United States**

Autumn had never heard of the term "permanently borrowing," so I educated her on it when we permanently borrowed a cherry-red Shelby-Cobra 500 from an unsuspecting millionaire who left his spare key with a very confused valet. For the first time in my life, I was scolded by a six-year-old for stealing.

Huh.

We arrived in a small community three miles outside of Los Angeles and booked a room at a Hilton using one of the millionaire's many credit cards that I may or may not have permanently borrowed from his valet twenty minutes before I permanently borrowed his car. (Strangely enough, the kid had nothing to say about stealing the money.) I figured that between the car and the hotel room, it might be easier to portrait ourselves as a rich mother and daughter staying in Los Angeles for the week if the police ever came knocking. But that would only happen if I messed up, and I wasn't too keen on letting that happen. I changed the plates and tags on the car and hacked the hotel's system to delay the room charge by thirty hours, just in case Mr. Millionaire wondered what happened to his stuff.

The main room of our suite was spacious, as per my request, and ten stories up. It had three windows, each connected to a fire escape, with one along the far wall facing towards the backside of a towering apartment skyscraper and a winding alley. [My ideal hideout: a place with at least three different escape routes.] A deep brown rug lent a splash of color to the white-tiled floor and gold trim framed cream wallpaper. Crystals gripped the wild spirals of the two chandeliers clinging to the popcorn-textured ceiling, casting fragments of yellowed light about the space. Arching doorways to the hall and bathroom sported floral carvings of unrecognizable design, ivory in color, and coddled heavy chestnut doors with fancy brass handles.

Deception comes in a pretty package, and I do enjoy irony.

 _He's in their system as Rue Ryuzaki. Twenty-one years old. Of Caucasian descent with a hint of Mongolian, but no known family. Black hair, brown eyes, and the exact same height as you. Freaky._ Judging by tone alone, were Trey capable of shivering, I imagine the loctopus would have caused a small earthquake. _He's being held in South Gate Psychiatric Hospital roughly two miles from this hotel. Charged with three counts of homicide but got off on account of insanity. Apparently, no one believes that a criminal could have connections to L._

"I've never been to L.A.!" says Autumn, excitement in her voice and actions as she flounced over to the bed and threw herself face-down atop the sheets. Suddenly going rigid, she glanced over her shoulder, peered up at me with pleading eyes, and asked, "Can we visit Hollywood? _Please_?"

"We're not here to sight-see," I reminded her sternly. "And while we're here, it's Los Angeles. Only people on the outside call it L.A."

Well, native Los Angeles citizens call it by its full name, _and_ their rivals in San Francisco. The two cites have had this underlying rivalry going for years, but very few people knew about it outside of California.

 _Why do they not know him as Beyond Birthday?_ I questioned.

 _It's strange, but every time a find a file that calls him that, it disappears soon after. Like his name is being protected, or something,_ says Trey in irritation.

 _Beyond Birthday is an... unusual name._

 _That's one way to look at it._

"But I wanna see the movie stars!" Autumn said in a pout.

"Why?" I asked, a bit shortly.

"...Huh?"

"Why do you want to see Hollywood and the movie stars?"

"Because they're awesome!" To emphasize her point, the girl grinned and jabbed the air with a finger.

 _Stop it,_ Trey chastised my current train of thought: debating whether or not I had time to hide Autumn's body before visiting South Gate. _She's six years old. Just pretend she's a blank slate and you're a piece of chalk._

That analogy.

 _Wow._

I could sense Trey's amusement without ever having to hear him say another word. Then I felt it promptly disappear when he read my next thoughts. Unfortunately for him, I didn't give the loctopus time to retaliate.

"What if I introduced you to someone more awesome than movie stars?" I said. My hand snagged Trey before he could scuttle away and I plopped down on the bed next to Autumn. When I offered Trey towards the girl, Autumn took the loctopus with wide eyes. "His name is Trey, and I can hear his thoughts. He says hello."

 _KC, this is not how you handle your problems! You don't just dump them on someone else!_

 _Yes, I do,_ I faked a pout before ignoring Trey's repetitive, inner chant of _You're dead_.

"He's... made of metal." Autumn's lower lip quivered as she held the loctopus close to her face. "What kind of spider-thingie is he?"

"Trey is a loctopus, and he's going to teach you something very important while I work, okay?" I said in what I hoped to be a soothing tone. "It'll help me tomorrow when I have a talk with Mr. Beyond Birthday."

"Beyond Birthday is a funny name," Autumn remarked. She turned Trey over and over in her hands while the loctopus continued to chant angrily in my general direction. It was all I could do not to snicker. "Why do you have to talk to him again?"

"He's going to help us find L, and L's smart enough to help us get home."

"Why can't _you_ find L?"

At this, I smirked. "I can. I'm just getting a little extra help."

"What's he saying now?" Autumn poked Trey with a finger.

"He's ticklish there," I replied, lying through my teeth with a grin on my face. Trey had something to say about this, but I don't feel like explaining Swedish curses; some things just don't translate very well—or appropriately.

My plan was a simple one. Or as simple as my plans could ever be. Using the millionaire's credit card(s) one final time before shredding and burning their remains, I purchased a laptop, but not for me. Trey would use his connection to all things electronic to teach Autumn how to hack through the very computer she would be holding. (I could just use Trey to do all the remote hacking, but for what I had planned, it would take too much energy on top of everything else, and I couldn't do it myself.) Meanwhile, I would be waltzing through the front doors of South Gate Psychiatric Hospital.

According to official documentation, L himself had never appeared in public, but his mouthpiece, Watari, showed up plenty of times. Always concealed beneath a trench coat and an over-sized hat, the man popped out of nowhere whenever L took interest in a case, and Watari then became the standard method of communication between L and whomever was currently working certain cases.

This was my cue.

My trip to Washington for winter clothes had rewarded Autumn and myself with more fitting winter attire, but a quick pop over to the local JC Penny gifted me with a Watari-esc coat and hat. It wasn't a perfect match—nor did it have to be—but it's not like I planned on letting anyone stare at me long enough to figure this out. However, adapting Watari's appearance would only get me so far, so I was in the middle of making some minor adjustments to the graphire/collar/Trey setup. Basically, I had altered the graphire to vocalize certain thoughts using a voice filter very similar to L's own. If I thought 'pickles are tasty,' then the graphire would say it in L's voice, but if I was just pondering life or talking to Trey, it wouldn't say anything.

But that wasn't all. After toying with the collar for a few hours, I locked it into place a little lower on my neck so as to penetrate my vocal chords. So long as I wore the collar, I would have a deep, aged voice: Watari's voice.

I think you're getting the picture.

As Autumn booted her new computer as per my instructions, I watched her delight when Trey pulled up Microsoft Word and began to use it to communicate with her. Every time the cursor whisked across the screen, the girl would gasp and lean forward, asking rapid-fire questions in such a way that Trey could barely type fast enough to answer them. I could feel a wry smile forming on my face as I watched the two (even though Trey shot me nasty glares as often as possible). Somehow, the loctopus managed to convince the girl to let him teach her something neat.

That was all it took to convince me that the two would be occupied until Autumn fell asleep. Delving back into my saved files on the graphire, I began to memorize the psychiatric hospital's blueprints and the city building plans of the surrounding area.

Tomorrow would be an interesting day indeed, especially if everything played out the way I planned.

* * *

 **January 17, 2007; 9:01 A.M.  
South Gate, California; United States**

By the time I walked out the door the following morning, Autumn swore that she didn't recognize me. The Watari Coat, as the girl had come to call it, hid my feminine figure (though there wasn't much to hide) and also disguised the outlines of the semi-automatic pistols I had swiped from the police officers back in St. George. The hat covered most of my face and left the rest in shadow. I had stuffed my hair up into the hat just to be safe, but Autumn still claimed that if she hadn't seen me get dressed, she would have mistaken me for a stranger.

So far, so good. But I was bringing my diamond lighter and daggers just in case. After all, it was doubtful that I could get the pistols through security.

Color me surprised when I stepped into the lobby of the visitor's wing of the psychiatric hospital and saw a brunette hunched over the daily crossword and blasting country music from his neon orange Beats headphones. One look at his face rewarded me with the man's information. Thank you, facial recognition.

"Shawn Ellis," I rumbled, stepping up to the desk.

The man jumped so violently that he almost threw himself halfway across the room, compliments of his rolling desk chair. "Erm, hello! Sorry, ah... can I help you?" In his haste to be of help, Shawn's attempt at shoving the crossword off of his desk resulted in the capsizing of his pencil mug. Writing utensils spilled out all over the desk-top and the man groaned.

"I wish to speak to Rue Ryuzaki in a private setup without cameras, wire taps, or surveillance of any sort," I said in Watari's deep monotone. Hours of hunting through countless conspiracy websites had paid off; a rare few had managed to catch the man on camera, but no one else could provide me a proper template of the man's voice.

"I, uh, I'm not authorized to let anyone speak to anyone by that—by that name," Shawn stammered, fumbling with the many pens and pencils. He dumped the cup in his own lap before he finally managed to corral the runaway utensils.

Anyone, huh?

Drawing the graphire from the large pocket of the Watari Coat, I booted it with my mind and thought as clearly as possible, _Greetings, Shawn Ellis. I am L._

The screen flickered to life—a dark, Old English L appearing against a stark, white background. " _Greetings, Shawn Ellis. I am L,_ " crackled through the graphire's tiny speakers, only a second of delay between my thoughts and the vocalization.

Shawn froze. A few pens clattered to the floor.

" _I require a private room so that I may speak to Rue Ryuzaki. Also, any and all paper files you have on him will need to be placed in Watari's care immediately. I trust that this won't be a problem._ "

The man's mouth moved but as of yet, no sound had come out.

 _Autumn's up to date on the latest hacking skills. We've only covered the basics, but it's more than enough to get her past 2007 firewalls. Was security really this bad?_ Trey's voice came as a welcome reprieve from watching the human guppie attempt speech.

 _I think this world is different in more ways than one,_ I replied. _How are we on time?_

 _Green all across the board._

One less problem for me to worry about.

" _Perhaps if this is too much to ask on such a short notice, I will make a direct request to your superiors in advance the next time I desire to come here._ " No, L isn't a dick, but I can be, especially when people try my very slim patience.

Fortunately, this got the ball rolling.

Shawn slapped at his keyboard before stuttering about how the room would be ready in ten minutes—but something told me that the wrong ball was rolling.

" _I anticipated a shorter visit, Mr. Ellis. Also, the files?_ " I prompted as L.

Five minutes later, one very breathless Shawn Ellis stood before me with a file folder almost an inch thick and a keycard dangling from a University of California lanyard. "Room 507 is ready, sir," Shawn said, passing them to me without hesitation.

" _Your cooperation is noted,_ " I intoned before sweeping past him.

I was only stopped twice while trying to navigate the inner workings of the hospital. The first time by an orderly who thought that I was a mental patient attempting to escape, and the second time by a security guard who thought that I was an orderly trying to slip off during break. Both times, my little L charade proved more than helpful. Both times, the offender scurried away without another word.

It took a grand total of twelve minutes for me to finally find the correct room, and even then, it was only because I had Trey to guide me. (Seriously, did these people have something against maps or signs? The blueprints I had pulled off the world wide web were far more organized, but thanks to recent reconstruction, the room numbers were all scrambled.) Literally everything was a stainless white color—walls, floor, ceiling, the orderlies' scrubs—and after said twelve minutes of pretending to be a mouse in a maze, I finally paused before a door no different from the rest. Like most rooms, its number was nailed into the door frame high above my head, curving gold lines against the white plate. Unlike most rooms, however, this one was located at the end of a long-ass hallway and tucked behind one final corner. It was well-hidden, and that didn't sit too well with me.

 _This feels like a trap,_ I thought, mostly to myself.

 _But you're going to spring it anyways,_ Trey said with a human-like sigh. _Look, just stop procrastinating. The longer we spend in this place, the longer it'll take me to erase their security tapes when we leave._

Once again, the little guy had a point.

And so, ignoring my building sense of anticipation, I swiped the keycard through the slot at the handle and entered the room.

For a hospital that prided itself on sterile whiteness, room 507 possessed an odd gray hue that darkened the atmosphere almost imperceptibly. Upon closing the door in my wake—hinges shrieking like a dying animal—I swear I could see more light coming from the crack under the door than the flickering overhead lights jammed crookedly into the ceiling. And as if that itself wasn't creepy enough, the individual before me certainly took the cake.

A straitjacket swallowed the lanky form, and thick straps secured the vest to the metal chair in which the man sat. The man in question was already staring at me from behind a curtain of dark hair, the longer strands spilling onto his shoulders. What little skin I could see was horribly scarred—to the point where it made the rest of his deathly-pale skin seem normal. As we observed one another, his head lolled to one side at an impossible angle and for a brief moment, the man's bangs swung out of the way and his haunted gaze was visible. Haunted, but gleaming with intelligence. One side of his mouth curled into a crooked grin that would have made a lesser man turn tail and run, but only sent a chill through my body. But when he spoke, it wasn't words of insanity.

"You have five minutes before the police surround this building, and they have no intention of letting either of us live." His voice, though positively haggard, held an odd ring of power.

Under the darkness cast by the hat, I blinked. Didn't most crazy people laugh obnoxiously or make ridiculous statements? For a man who escaped his charges on account of mental illness, Beyond Birthday seemed too... logical.

Or he was just bullshitting me in an attempt to get under my skin. Oh well. There was one sure-fire way to find out.

Pulling the graphire from my pocket, I pointed the screen at the man. " _Beyond Birthday. The world's greatest... criminal._ " Too cocky for L? Probably. " _I would say that it is a pleasure to meet you, but alas, I am not there nor am I pleased. However, I suppose it is customary, considering that I wish to know more about the person who fantasized himself as me. Furthermore, I know that you have had no contact with the outside world since your sentencing, so your attempts to rile me are for naught._ "

The demented smile promptly vanished from Beyond's face as he dropped his eyes to the floor. Sighing, he rubbed his bare feet together as he said, "I may be in solitary confinement, but regardless of what these orderlies believe, I am not deaf. Also," Beyond raised his eyes and I could have sworn his intense gaze burned right through the hat, "I commend you on your efforts."

My efforts?

"I may even go so far as to say that you have impressed me," Beyond continued in a bored tone. "Not many seeking L would have dared go this far. I guess that you are either the bravest, the cleverest, or the most determined of them all, but I commend you none the less. Disguising yourself as Watari was a nice touch, and bringing in a fake L."

I actively felt my mind grind to a halt. In fact, I'm pretty sure a part of my soul died right then and there. _How the hell...?!_

"Judging by your silence, I am going to assume that I am correct." There was no taunting in his tone; only blunt honestly.

It suddenly occurred to me that I had no idea what I was going to say. "Hello, B! I'm a detective from the future of an alternate timeline and the only way to get back is for you to tell me how to get in touch with the smartest guy in this universe so we can figure out how to reverse this!" didn't seem like the best approach.

 _I hate to be a killjoy, but he wasn't joking,_ Trey piped up, his voice tense. _Street cameras just up the road picked up almost twenty cars heading this way. They'll be here in four minutes._

Four minutes was not enough time to properly interrogate this guy.

 _Tell Autumn to wipe the files now,_ I instructed.

 _On it, boss._

As for the lunatic in front of me, I would have to take a different tact to get what I wanted. Inhaling slowly, I untucked the file folder from the inner pocket of the Watari coat. "These are all of your written documents, correct?" I asked.

His head lolled to the other side. "Sure."

Pulling out the diamond lighter, I set the file aflame and tossed it to the floor. "Are you certain?"

A ghost of a smirk flickered across Beyond's face. "Certainly."

So much for blatant honesty. Now I wasn't sure what would be harder: getting the information or not punching him in the face.

"Your case was an interesting one, Beyond Birthday. Using the nails of hung wara ningyo dolls to create a locked room scenario is clever, as was the diversity with which you killed your victims. Intending to commit suicide by fire would have finished the series of murders and effectively assembled an unsolvable case that would surely be remembered for years to come. Alas, you failed, and L took the credit for your arrest. You claim to have known him, which is how you were able to slip the charges placed against you. Now you rot away in this place, contributing nothing to this world."

Beyond's eyebrows raised. "In the five years I have spent in custody or prison, I have calculated seventy-nine methods with which to efficiently escape. There were approximately three hundred and fifty-one times that I could have escaped with little difficulty and even less planning."

I knew what he wanted, and I knew from the moment he opened his mouth. Beyond Birthday wanted me curious. Malleable. Able to be manipulated.

"Three minutes," he announced.

For a man locked in a cell with no windows or clocks, Beyond had a very keen sense of time.

I focused my gaze on him. There was a very specific reason why an intelligent person might choose to remain in prison, or an asylum in this case.

"Escaping wouldn't be worth your while if you had no motivation to leave," I said.

"Oh, no. I have plenty of motivation," Beyond interjected before I could continue.

"You're waiting for your opportunity to strike."

"Mhmm... close, but no dice."

I resisted the urge to sigh. Not that I didn't enjoy a round of BS every now and then, but I came here with a goal. If Mr. High and Mighty wanted to play pretend, then there was little I could do to convince the crazy person otherwise.

"You're growing bored with me," Beyond said in a sing-song voice. His head lolled to the other side with a sickening crack. "Perhaps I am a terrible host. I _am_ out of practice."

"Perhaps I require more intangible hospitality," I suggested. Pulling the hat from my head, I looked down at Beyond with the full force of my stare—something that would have had a member of organized crime collapsing at my feet and begging for forgiveness. "Tell me about L, Beyond Birthday."

A wicked grin morphed onto the man's face and Beyond took a moment to shake the hair from his eyes. Peering up at me with eyes so wide it was almost comical, I could see the finite details: a brown so dark it could have passed as black, with streaks of gray here and there, and even a sliver of gold just under his right pupil.

"An eye for an eye, Katheryn Carpenter," purred Beyond. The effect was almost killed by his manged vocal chords. Almost. And then it hit me.

Katheryn Carpenter. My _name_.

 _Trey, how the_ _fucking hell_ _does he know who I am?!_

 _I... I don't know,_ the loctopus replied uneasily.

Beyond Birthday knew my name. He knew my name, and he supposedly knew about L. I had two minutes before the building was surrounded by twenty patrol cars. Autumn was still deleting all of Beyond's files so that Kira wouldn't kill him before I could get an answer of the guy. Beyond _knew my name_.

"Please. It's KC between colleagues," I scoffed. The least I could do was work some damage control, and the last thing I needed right now was to have some psychopath blurting out my real identity to everyone on the streets. Granted, he wasn't going to be able to do much inside the mental hospital, but I was taking no chances. "Would you like for me to call you Rue Ryuzaki in return?"

The head swung back to the other side. "You would refer to us as colleagues despite having just met?" Beyond asked, amusement lacing his tone. "And you're not even going to question how I know your name?"

Wait. He had never met me? Then how _did_ he know my name?!

"I'm a federal investigator. You could say I've seen my fair share of things far stranger," I replied offhandedly.

 _Autumn finished erasing every trace of Beyond that we could find. Kira won't be offing this guy anytime soon. I'd say you have all the time in the world, but..._

 _Thanks, Trey._

Once again, the loctopus was right. I was running out of time.

"Do you like jam?" Beyond asked suddenly, leaning as far forward as he could in his restraints. A strand of hair fell back in front of his face, but the schizophrenic made no attempt to move it.

I raised an eyebrow. "Sure."

"What's your favorite flavor?"

"Favorites are too biased for jam."

Beyond's mouth dropped open, and for a moment, I thought that his jaw had fallen off of his face. It hung at such a wide angle that it looked even more painful than the current tilt of his head. As if in agreement with my words, his head snapped upright when he looked me dead in the eye and said, "I will make you rue those words, Katheryn," in a serious voice as elegant as nails on a chalkboard.

There was no stopping the shiver that ran the length of my body.

 _KC, you need to get out of there. The police are ten blocks away!_ Trey said hurriedly. _Get what we came for and scram!_

"KC," I corrected before adding, "Beyond, I need any and all-"

"Information I have on L," finished Beyond. "But you seem to be forgetting something. Eye for an eye? Tooth for a tooth?"

"You want info?" I countered with a chuckle.

Nothing new. The Blacksmith wanted information, so did Beyond. Open trade between criminals. So one can imagine my surprise at Beyond's next words.

"I want out."

I stared at him quizzically before stating, "What happened to 'three hundred and fifty-one chances to bolt'?"

It was probably my imagination, but Beyond's expression darkened into one more sly. "I have discovered my ninetieth plan of escape, and it is far more interesting than any plan I have devised prior."

Oh.

 _I'm_ the ninetieth plan.

I gave up trying to suppress a deadpan look. "You want me to help a schizophrenic serial killer escape because he finds me interesting?"

"I am not schizophrenic," Beyond stated, eyebrows raised pointedly, "but those who do not empathize with my reasoning behind setting myself aflame tend to believe what they will."

I steeled my gaze.

"You will accept my offer, _KC_ , because I am the only person alive who can give you what you want," Beyond said, eyes glittering in the faint light. "And our time is up, so I cannot tell you here and now."

Dammit. He wasn't wrong.

I had a ten-second debate with myself. To care or not to care. Did I really need L's help to get home? Probably. Did I really need Beyond to get to L to get L's help?

...Probably.

Schist.

 _The building is completely surrounded,_ Trey informed me tensely. _We can't afford to drag him along. Getting out by ourselves will be difficult enough as is._

Difficult, but not impossible.

 _KC, don't you dare. Don't you fucking dare. I can see what's in your mind, and it. Is. STUPID._

I drew one of the diamond daggers from its hiding place in the hat. Even when I stepped closer and leveled it at the man's chest, Beyond didn't break eye contact.

"Beyond Birthday," I rumbled. "We have a deal."

* * *

 **January 17, 2007; 8:12 P.M.  
Tokyo ****111-0032; Japan**

The trap had been sprung, and L had instantly dropped everything to see what he had caught. Just earlier that day, he had tested for eight hours to earn entrance into To-Oh University—the first of two very long days, but he wasn't about to let this opportunity slip through his fingers. As soon as the call arrived, L dropped to the floor, shoved his notes to the Kira case aside, and set up a single laptop in the middle of the hotel floor. The time zone difference put L eleven hours ahead of California's Pacific Time, but it made little difference to him. However, when he made to check his trap, L found that none of the cameras in South Gate Psychiatric Hospital could be remotely accessed, and even ten straight minutes of hacking proved fruitless.

Something was very, very wrong.

 _This isn't Kira's MO,_ L thought, tugging the laptop across the bare floor so that he could crouch without straining. _Kira is more up front about his offensive maneuvers, especially those whose purpose was to bait me. This is too subtle a move, but if not Kira, then who?_

Who would take an interest in L's identity this late in the game?

Since he could not access the cameras inside of the building, L switched between the various cameras placed on the outside of the police cars surrounding the building. Upon taking the Kira case, L had relocated his successor into a facility much like the mental institute that had already held him for years. There were no other patients, but the staff would fake it, and everyone who entered the building on a regular basis underwent extensive background checks. Its employees received even less rights.

L had prepared this elaborate scheme in the faint hopes that Kira might go to extremes to discover his rival's name, but what he got was something unexpected: someone able to outhack him _and_ delete all of Beyond Birthday's files in one go. Kira, whom L presumed to be operating alone, could not have possibly done all of this in such a short time period.

No. This was a major player. An organization, L might go so far as to say, or even a small group of very skillful individuals. Regardless, someone was determined to find L, and they hadn't fallen for the usual trick of trying to hire Eraldo Coil or Denueve. This made them intelligent, and therefore dangerous.

" _L, we have the building surrounded. Thirty-four officers, six dogs, and twenty cars. Whoever is in there won't be escaping anytime soon,_ " promised the Los Angeles Chief of Police, a distinguished man called Corwin Thompson. This was his first time working with L, and apart from Thompson's overestimation of self, L had yet to be disappointed.

" _Tell your officers to proceed on my call, and not a second before,_ " L instructed.

Those hired to play the part of employees had evacuated as soon as the visitor entered Backup's cell. With the civilians out of harm's way, the only people left in the building were Backup and said visitor.

L jumped from one camera to another, checking for gaps in the lineup. There weren't as many officers present as he would have liked, but this was no time to be picky. Every minute wasted getting into position was another minute for Backup to devise an escape plan, and he hadn't been chosen as L's successor for nothing. Yet despite the police force's display of power, L still would have preferred Naomi Misora among their ranks.

"Chief Thompson," L said into the receiver, "Give-"

The top of the building exploded.

Chaos dominated the scene. L watched, frozen, as another explosion rocked the foundation of the psychiatric hospital, and the detective had only a moment to regret building it into a tower before it began to topple. Police officers, the brave and fearful alike, turned and fled. Debris rained down on the immediate surroundings, creating a dust cloud that began to dwarf the area. In a matter of seconds, L's cameras were rendered useless. A few minutes later—hours in this moment—another explosion rocked the earth and kicked up the dust into an even more dense haze.

Stabbing at the buttons, L tried to reinstate a sense of order, but no one would listen. He could only watch in frustration as the dust slowly began to dissipate and reveal the true carnage. A few officers who work well under pressure remembered to clean off some of the cameras so that L wasn't completely blind. Somehow, L wasn't sure what he expected to see, or even if he could bare to witness it.

The building, though it had begun to topple towards one side of the ring of patrol cars, had in fact collapsed straight down. Its rubble was contained to a solid fifty yards past the foundation of the building—a good twenty feet from any officer. The dust cloud had hung in the air for a few good minutes, and in that time, Corwin Thompson had run all the way around the ring and returned to his car.

" _L!_ " the man gasped, coughing loudly. " _Everyone's fine. Shaken, but fine. What do you need us to do now?_ "

 _Backup would not have collapsed the building on top of himself. He was suicidal for a few months after his conviction, but there is a mere half a percent that he would still retain such urges._ L leaned forward, switching between the many cameras at a rate that left him reeling. _The building fell in such a way that no officers were harmed but that the fall would maximize the volume of dust that would be kicked up. This was a controlled explosion designed as a diversion. Placing explosives on the highest floor was to distract from what would be going on below, and the felling of the building was to serve as cover._

With a growing sense of dread, L mulled over his old successor's extensive set of skills. The handling of explosives in such a complex way was not among them.

" _L?_ " Thompson question. His voice was ragged from coughing and the chief pressed a handkerchief to his face. " _Are you still with us?_ "

"Yes," L finally spoke. "I need you to call in an explosives expert and begin clearing away the rubble. Keep as many officers at the perimeter as you can afford. It is doubtful the blast claimed their lives."

But it was even more doubtful that they were still in the building. In fact, L had an inkling that Backup and his visitor wouldn't use the dust cloud as cover to run between the police blockade.

South Gate _was_ part of Los Angeles after all, and Los Angeles had a fairly wide sewer system.

 _The building collapsed straight down._ L raised his head and ran his thumb over his bottom lip. _They used the downward force of the building's fall to break into the sewers. But in order to survive the crumbling around them, they would have had to take cover under something fairly indestructible..._

On the first floor, in an office protected by four deadbolts, three locks, and two combinations, was the safe where Beyond Birthday's paper trail was kept. A Chubb Sovereign, made in 1979, worth a little under seventy thousand dollars to date. Its claims to be "nearly indestructible" had been tested by L himself, and the detective found it suitable for his purposes. Its inner dimensions were five and a third feet high, two feet wide, and a little under two feet deep—plenty of room to fit two short, slender individuals. The only problem would be getting out (for the Chubb had a dual locking system and couldn't be opened from the inside), unless the door had been wedged open during the building's fall.

Three hours later and every minute keeping L in suspense, the last of the rubble was cleared away to reveal a giant hole in the ground—a hole that had broken through the top of a sewage tunnel. And there, in broad daylight, sat a blood-covered safe void of documents and people.

The electronic files had been deleted. The paper records had been reduced to ashes. All of the cameras inside of the building had been destroyed beyond repair, and there was no hope of pulling any footage from them. The direct link coming from the cameras had been intercepted by an advanced hacker, or possibly a team of hackers. The visitor thought quick on his feet, had managed to smuggle explosives into the building, and had been clever enough to disguise himself as Watari so that none of the employees could describe him afterwords.

Using the very prison L had built to keep Backup in custody, and the help of an anonymous individual, Beyond Birthday had escaped without a trace.

Now, L had two serial killers on his hands: Kira and Beyond. And that wasn't even counting the new player in the game.


	4. Knowledge is Power Power Corrupts

_*swaggers in late with Starbucks* Hullo, readers! Happy New Year, and all that jazz! I hope the erratic updates aren't throwing you guys off, but I feel like I should have warned everyone about irregular updates earlier. Oops. Well, if you aren't familiar with the Stormy Style, then please know that there is no such thing as "regular" updates in my world. XD Apologies in advance.  
_

 _Thank you, everyone, for all of the support that you have given me over the years - for this version of CY and the original. Your feedback is incredibly valuable to me as a writer and, as readers, I encourage you to speak your mind so that I can constantly improve the quality of my work._

 _WildfireDreams:_ _I am truly impressed that you've been able to keep up with me this whole time. Thank you for your dedication. :)_

 _Metaphors and Miracles: Aww, thank you! I'll try to retain my current level of quality then, especially since this story will be more quickly paced than the original. I hope you enjoy it!_

 _Akira0666 : I'm glad you like it! As for the changes... yeah, they had to be made. XD I was in middle school when I was first putting together this story, though I didn't put it up on here until high school after much revision. Even though the original holds a special place in my heart, CY was in drastic need of a revamping. Hopefully this update follows the trend of awesomeness that I've been trying to achieve._

 _I also feel the need to throw in a quick disclaimer: please do not try anything mentioned in this book at home. Just because something is physically possible doesn't mean that we should test this for ourselves._

 _And now, without further ado, I present you chapter four. Hope you all are having a wonderful day! Kat, out!_

* * *

 **Knowledge is Power. Power Corrupts. Study Hard; Become Evil**

 **Previously...  
(January 17, 2007; 9:16 A.M.  
South Gate, California; United States)**

"You will accept my offer, _KC_ , because I am the only person alive who can give you what you want," Beyond said, eyes glittering in the faint light. "And our time is up, so I cannot tell you here and now."

Dammit. He wasn't wrong.

I had a ten-second debate with myself. To care or not to care. Did I really need L's help to get home? Probably. Did I really need Beyond to get to L to get L's help?

...Probably.

Schist.

 _The building is completely surrounded,_ Trey informed me tensely. _We can't afford to drag him along. Getting out by ourselves will be difficult enough as is._

Difficult, but not impossible.

 _KC, don't you dare. Don't you fucking dare. I can see what's in your mind, and it. Is. STUPID._

I drew one of the diamond daggers from its hiding place in the hat. Even when I stepped closer and leveled it at the man's chest, Beyond didn't break eye contact.

"Beyond Birthday," I rumbled. "We have a deal."

Slicing through the straightjacket and restraints took a matter of seconds, but it was seconds wasted. _Trey, link me to the cameras,_ I ordered as I ripped the jacket off of Beyond. The man before me rolled his shoulders and a series of cracks echoed loudly in the confined space. _I need to know what I'm up against._

 _We're completely surrounded. Thirty cars, each officer with partners, and six dogs. That's more ammunition than I'd like to chance,_ the loctopus replied, but he brought up the external cameras anyways.

Oh dear.

"Wonderful," I muttered under my breath. _Well, if we can't just make a break for it, let's make a break. Give me the building schematics._

Turning to Beyond, I flipped the dagger around so that the hilt pointed towards him. I extended it to him without a word.

Naturally, Beyond would have something to say about this. "You do realize that this is the equivalent of giving drugs to a junkie or alcohol to a drunk." That smirk would haunt my nightmares.

"So hurry up and take the damned thing before I change my mind."

The schizophrenic plucked the knife from my grasp and idly spun it around his fingers. I was momentarily hypnotized by his astounding dexterity, until I remembered that I couldn't let Trey do all of the work.

"Is there anything in this building that could survive a building collapsing on top of it?" I asked Beyond. "Someplace large enough to stash a body?"

His apathetic expression told me exactly what he thought of random questions, but the amusement flashing in his dark eyes caught me off guard. "There's a safe on the first floor. Chubb. 1979. Fairly durable. Whose body are you planning to 'stash'?"

"Ours," I replied dryly. "Go downstairs, locate the safe, and meet me by the elevators when you're done. Also, if you can find any organic material, like blood or tissue samples, get them."

I sprinted from the room without another word.

 _Trey, blueprints._ _Now_ _._

 _There are five places downstairs that meet the proper criteria. We'd have to blow them at two different times to get the building to collapse in on itself, though. Do you have enough gum?_

 _I always have enough gum._

I jabbed the button to the elevator. Most people say that it's suicidal to take the elevator during an emergency, but it was quicker than trying to run up twenty flights of steps. As soon as it arrived, I rode it to the top floor, pack of gum in hand. Pacifying elevator music accompanied me. When I reached the correct floor, I sent the elevator to the basement level and raced down the hallway, following the blueprints in my mind. I popped two sticks of spearmint in my mouth, chewed for thirty seconds, and deposited them in the corner of an empty office room near the far side of the building.

Cue the one and a half minute countdown.

Poking the giant ball into the groove where two walls meet the floor, I stretched the gum as far as it could go, popping another stick into my mouth as I went. I began to connect the balls of gum, sticking them to one another and stretching them as far as they could go. Once I had one entire wall of the twenty-fifth floor outlined in explosive gum, I ran back to the elevator, spat out the blob in my mouth, and lobbed it towards a random corner. Using the diamond dagger I still had, I pried open the elevator shaft, slipped off the Watari coat, wrapped it around the cables, and slid down to the top of the elevator. By the time I weaseled through the doorway of the first floor, the first explosion went off.

Beyond watched with an unreadable expression as I barely managed to dodge an incoming chunk of falling plaster. At his side sat an open cooler of blood bags.

"Is the safe bolted to the floor?" I asked, somewhat breathlessly.

"Yes," he answered in a steady voice.

I nodded, mind mulling over everything. "Cover the outside of the safe in the blood. Don't leave a single spot untouched, but save half a bag. Pull everything out of the safe and set it on fire. Be ready to get in it when I come back." I handed him the lighter as I walked past, not bothering to see his reaction.

 _Trey, show me where to plant the gum._

The next few minutes were spent snapping acidic glowsticks, chewing bubblegum, and running like hell back to where I had last seen Beyond. I called to him and followed the sound of his voice down a winding hallway. As instructed, the safe was sufficiently covered in blood and an opened bag sat propped against the cooler. Pulling Trey from his hiding spot on the back of my neck, I coated him in the remaining blood and stuck him just under the latch on the door.

 _You better let us out after we drop,_ I told him.

Trey shot me the image of a shit-eating grin. _Yes, master. I live to serve._

"Hop in," I instructed Beyond, waving my hand at the safe. I chose not to notice that the man had somehow managed to crack open the safe and remove the files without further instruction from me. (In all honesty, I had been expecting to use Trey to break in—but that wouldn't have left us much time to take cover.)

If he was at all nervous about squeezing himself into a very small space with a crazy lady, Beyond gave no such indication. He didn't even hesitate to weasel himself in.

Climbing inside the safe, I tugged the door closed and finished my countdown. "Four, three, two, one."

The second explosion shook the building.

"Brace yourself. We're about to drop," I warned Beyond.

'Cramped' would have been the understatement of the century had I used it to describe my current circumstances. Beyond and I were a hair too tall to stand up straight inside of the safe, so bent knees poked one another in places that were probably more uncomfortable for him than me. His breath rasped in my ear since our heads practically sat on one another's shoulders. I was just glad that I didn't have giant boobs to work around.

The first collision with the top of the safe caught us both off guard. Beyond hissed when I accidentally elbowed him in the ribs. Grunting, I shifted so that I could brace with one arm up near my head and the other wrapping around Beyond's side. It was too dark to see how the man handled himself, but I could feel him slide an inch or two lower so that he could press one knee against the opposite wall to my right; the heat seeping through his pants was warm enough for me to feel through the layers upon layers of skin-tight clothing.

The next few collisions came back to back, and then one final blow toppled us. My collarbone caught Beyond's head when he lurched forward, trying to avoid crumpling on top of me. Then the safe tipped again and started rolling. I can't say who won the contest for most creative swears, but it was a long twenty seconds of pretending that we were children hiding inside of a dryer.

It took another twenty seconds after we stopped moving—we were laying on our sides, trying to disentangle our limbs—before Trey hacked the combination and picked the lock. As soon as the dual locking system disengaged, I shoved the door open and clambered out. A quick look around told me everything I needed to know.

I put a finger to my lips and helped pull Beyond to his feet. Collecting Trey from the open door, I shoved the bloody loctopus back under the collar of my turtleneck and beckoned for Beyond to follow me down the sewer tunnel.

The plan couldn't have worked more perfectly if it had been scripted in an action movie. The first explosion had destabilized the building, making it easier for the second explosion to topple it, and provided us with a nice debris precipitation. The second explosion had toppled the building _and_ blown open the capsules to synthesize the acidic reaction faster. Corrosion had eaten away the important supports (and the floor), causing the building to fall in on itself rather than topple like a felled piece of timber. However, since the acid would dissolve anything inorganic, the safe and Trey had to be coated in a layer of organic material to prevent corrosion (since corrosion of the safe would mean that a beam could tear through and kill us). The weight of the building coming down had busted a hole into the sewers. Trey had opened the safe from the outside since he was somewhat protected from the fall by hiding in the combination well. No casualties. No flaws.

Police: zilch. KC: over nine thousand.

* * *

 **January 16, 2007; 10:42 A.M.  
Downey, California; United States**

Exploding bubble gum was new to Beyond. Chew for thirty seconds. Spit. Run like hell. Two minutes after the gum first came into contact with human saliva, the gum would explode. Of course, the woman waited until _after_ she popped half of the pack in her mouth before telling this to Beyond.

Half of the remaining pack to blow the roof of the mental hospital; the other half to destabilize the foundation of the building.

Corrosive glow sticks were another first of Beyond's. When snapped, the acid would explode from the capsule ten minutes later and begin to dissolve any inorganic material it touched, unless the bubble gum blew open its capsule first. "Like Hot Hands, but less heat and more destruction," KC had told him. Apparently humans, being organic, were safe from the corrosion, but bringing the building down directly on top of them had been the last thing Beyond had been expecting.

Hiding in the safe was also quite clever. Cramped, but clever. (They had had to relieve the safe of the _real_ files on Beyond Birthday, which he did by setting them on fire as well, in order to make room.) By covering the safe in blood from the hospital's emergency stash, the corrosion wouldn't eat through the safe and get them crushed (or impaled) by accident. But KC never explained how she got the door open afterwords.

They had spent approximately an hour in the sewers, during which time KC spent slicing off the bits of her clothes that had come into contact with the acid to prevent further corrosion. Beyond had jogged after her, grasping the dagger she had given him.

Though he had initially questioned the woman for handing him a weapon, Beyond was learning that, sometimes, it was better to see what asinine results would come from the estranged concoctions of KC's mind.

The subject of weaponry had not been approached since.

Now, they were ambling through the streets of Downey, KC clutching her head and all but leaning on Beyond for support as heavy rain pummeled everyone foolish enough to be outdoors. The longer Beyond watched, the more he would notice. Like the way she swayed away from passing pedestrians who weren't anywhere close to her, or how she had to squint to focus on anything, or the way her complexion deteriorated from pale into light gray with each passing minute. When she ditched him for exactly forty-eight seconds to burglarize a convenience store, Beyond stopped suspecting that something was wrong and _knew_.

Especially when KC returned to him with two empty cans of Monster, with four more tucked into the pockets of her coat and one half-drunk in her hands.

This woman was out of her mind.

But within minutes, her complexion improved, the grip on Beyond's arm was definitely tighter than before, and her hold was more to prevent him from pulling away than to keep herself upright.

KC couldn't have been experiencing caffeine withdrawals, nor any sort of sugar crash. The symptoms didn't match. Furthermore, she hadn't been shaking. But _something_ had been rapidly sapping her strength to the point of almost dropping dead. A fluctuating terminal illness, perhaps?

Beyond could feel it—faint, but present. Like a titan awakening after years of slumber, curiosity blinked sleep from its eyes. Mildly irritating and persistent, it poked at Beyond.

It had been a long time since anything had piqued his curiosity. Five years of solitary confinement, first in a hospital, then in jail, and finally in L's perfect little trap—it had done a real number on his mentality. Beyond had long since stopped caring about many things, like the outside world (since L would prefer to keep him locked away to simmer in his failure) or other people (who could never understand his perspective anyway). It felt nice to finally have something to occupy him after _five years_ of lacking stimuli.

He would vehemently deny it aloud, but Beyond felt damn good right about then. Free, curious—not to mention, a genius—finally strolling the streets with a fascinating individual. Dare he think it... Beyond might have considered himself to be having fun.

Then they arrived at the unspoken destination, and Beyond began to question more than his life choices.

It was an enormous hotel—too gilded and ostentatious to have honestly appealed to KC. Yet when the woman insisted that they clamber up the fire escapes, Beyond merely wiped some of the excess blood off of his hands and got to climbing.

" _I have never once been submissive_ ," he had said, a very long time ago. Beyond was practically a different person then. " _One of the few things I can boast about. I have never even been submissive to a traffic signal._ "

Even when KC stopped on the seventh floor to chug another energy drink, even as Beyond's eyes scanned the enormous tower and the spiraling fountain out front and the frazzled valets running circles amongst the long line of expensive cars rolling under the expanseway and the enormous sign on the curving rooftop that proclaimed "CASINO" in loopy cursive, even when [in a rather amusing lapse of attention] KC left herself wide open and Beyond curled his fingers around the blade of the knife—he didn't. He didn't doubt. He didn't antagonize. He didn't kill. He didn't fall back on old habits. He _didn't._

For the first time, Beyond Birthday was entirely complacent—out of subtle euphoria.

Freedom was something that most took for granted. Five years in restraints, either by heavy Velcro or the tight bind of a straitjacket, was all it took for Beyond to learn his lesson. He understood what it was like to be confined, to be humiliated, to be completely immobilized when and where it counted.

But now he breathed fresh air, climbed fire escapes with a woman whose mental stability was even more questionable than Beyond's himself, and felt _alive_.

So he didn't mind all that much when the woman gave sharp orders; not that he didn't train a hellish smirk on her the entire time. Freedom brought with it a familiar, bitter taste: anger. Anger at L for locking him away, anger at himself for so badly underestimating (or overestimating, depending on how one looks at it) Naomi Misora, and just anger in general. And even though his smirk had very little relation to how he was feeling, he had also severely underestimated KC's ability to read body language, because their pause on the seventh floor lasted longer than expected when she fixed an intense stare upon Beyond.

"There are conditions to the terms of your release," she began, pivoting to face him fully once more. Then, and only then because he was incredibly rusty, did Beyond notice the dagger gripped in one hand—an identical match to the knife that he held. During the slightest of silences, Beyond caught himself glancing between the two to check for any discrepancies; as far as he could see, there were none. "Leave the kid untouched and I'll personally assure you that the police, nor L, will lay a finger on you. If you fancy yourself clever enough to stab me in the back and get away with it..."

Suddenly, Beyond found himself pinned against the outside of the hotel wall, KC's knife at his throat.

KC's grin was downright maniacal as she said, in a tone more growl than voice, "Well, I wouldn't completely discourage you from trying it sometime."

Curiosity made way for other emotions that Beyond hadn't felt in some time. Memories resurfaced, actions made prevalent—the un-private detective emerged full-force and Beyond raked his eyes over the woman's body.

Going off of the underlying power in her voice, Beyond would have to say that KC held a position of equal power. The certainty, yet oddly versatile, offensive stance that she took against him looked fluid, practiced, trained—she was surely skilled in hand to hand combat. Pressed up against the contours of his neck where it met the back of his jaw, positioned directly over his jugular so as to avoid the trachea should she desire to decapitate him, the knife nipped; KC was familiar with human anatomy—and what it took to end a life. The way she took control of her circumstances, both now and back at South Gate, led Beyond to believe her a woman of constitution, dominance, and logic. She made her demands firmly, yet somewhat offhandedly, as though to give the impression that she had far worse to worry about than keeping her poor, recently-freed criminal under control.

A single spark of anger suddenly became directed at KC.

Beyond Birthday yielded to nothing and no one. Not even a fucking traffic signal.

So he let his smirk widen. His mouth opened slightly so that his tongue could slither out and lightly trace the closest knuckle of the hand wielding the blade.

KC didn't even blink.

She was good, but not good enough. Beyond still noticed the way her core muscles contracted—the fight or flight temptation that must have surged within her.

 _So even you have a concept of socially acceptable behavior_ , Beyond mused.

But to Beyond's utter astonishment, KC wiped the knuckle off on his chin before withdrawing the blade.

When KC resumed climbing up the fire escape (which was rather poorly constructed for a hotel of such expense and magnitude), Beyond delicately fingered the moisture on his face before following.

A real piece of work, she was. It might be fun to break her.

Clambering through a window on the tenth floor, Beyond had just enough time to think this before agony ripped through his entire body and a seizure threw him to the floor.

* * *

 **January 16, 2007; 12:03 P.M.  
Downey, California; United States**

I wasn't entirely sure what I had been expected upon returning to the hotel. Maybe Autumn would be watching television, taking a bath, or doing other strange things that small children do when the only supervision they have is an artificially intelligent lock-picking device. When I crawled through the window and called out, "Autumn?" in a hushed voice barely louder than a whisper, I certainly didn't expect to hear the crackle of a taser behind me.

Whirling around and brandishing the knife like a woman possessed, I felt the fight leave my body at the sight of Beyond Birthday slumped against the floor at the feet of my six-year-old charge.

Who was holding the taser that I had swiped from the police evidence lockers.

Autumn looked at me with wild eyes. "You were being followed!" she declared in a voice equal parts terror and pride.

Personally, I wasn't sure if _I_ should be more terrified or proud.

* * *

 **January 16, 2007; 1:00 P.M.  
Los Angeles, California; United States**

I should have tried to wake Beyond earlier. I should have thought this through a little more. I probably should have left Autumn at a safe house. I _definitely_ should have had Trey double-check my sanity before embarking on a new operation.

How the hell was I supposed to leave the country if L had plastered our faces all over America's No-Fly list?

Okay, that one was simple.

(And it was my face and Autumn's. For some reason, Beyond wasn't even mentioned when I hacked the Department of Homeland Security. Not for the first time, I wondered just how deep L's connections ran, and if L had somehow made the connection between the woman who escaped from the hospital and the Watari-esc individual who had freed Beyond. It wouldn't surprise me if Autumn and I were on the No-Fly list because of our questionable circumstances alone. Regardless, it sure makes a woman paranoid.)

But how the hell were _we_ supposed to leave the country if 'Jessica McGee' wasn't a solid alias (and when it was, it would surely pop up because of my flight form the hospital), I had no backup and no allies and no real plan and no Blacksmith to fund my adventures, _and_ we had to do so without endangering the lives of civilians?

My "not-so-great-and-thus-not-real" plan: wing it like a boss.

So when Beyond groggily, and tentatively, ran his fingers over his temple to signal his awakening, I said before he could speak, "Apologies for the electrocution. We're at the Los Angeles International Airport. Rise and shine, or you're getting left in the land of the free."

His eyes blinked open and stared impassively at the ceiling of our stolen vehicle. (Regrettably, the millionaire's Shelby Cobra wasn't discreet in the slightest, so I had to swap it for a less distinctive car.) I had parked the tiny Audi in the most accessible location, in case a quick getaway was necessary, but I was still on high alert as I swept my eyes around the area. I was looking for people (witnesses, officers, or maybe a patrolman who had noticed me breaking every speed limit law from Downey to here), exits, and maybe a food court. Not even the glucose drip, which I had swiped from my IV stand when fleeing the hospital, was doing much good; and I had one Monster left, which I proceeded to chug when I popped the top.

Squinting at the harsh light streaming in through the windows, Beyond lifted his head and glanced around. I almost choked on the Monster when his entire body went rigid.

"I don't mean to alarm you," Beyond said in a low undertone, "but there is a youth in the backseat. And she has a gun."

One glance in the rear-view mirror showed me Autumn glowering at Beyond with all of the ferocity of a tiny kitten. She might have been cute had she not been aiming a pistol in Beyond's general direction. Her grip was too tight and had the gun fired, Autumn would have shot Beyond in his arm if she was lucky, but it got the idea across.

I didn't trust Beyond as far as I could throw him, and I certainly wasn't about to take any chances.

Then again, there were probably better ways to handle this than giving the kid a gun.

"Meet my apprentice, Autumn," I said, taking more delight in the situation than I should have. "Kid, you know who this is."

"Hmm. My assumption was incorrect." Beyond twisted his torso at an impossible angle and propped himself up on one elbow. Since the seat was reclined, he was practically in the backseat. "You are not a hostage nor her child."

"Fight me," Autumn said in a quivering voice, but determination blazed in her eyes and the gun's aim didn't waver.

But now she would have been shooting Beyond's hip.

And as much as I wanted to see how this would end, I had to look at the bigger picture.

"Save the fighting for _after_ we arrive in Japan. If we do so and keep all our limbs, we'll have earned it." I released a heavy sigh as I glanced around yet again. "We're boarding a flight that departs at exactly two o'clock; the time is now one oh'three. L has already informed authorities that we might attempt to flee the country but he has no idea who was behind the jailbreak. There is no one who can smuggle us to Japan, especially not at an acceptable rate, and we can only rely on ourselves."

Beyond didn't say anything. He didn't have to. One corner of his mouth curled into the infuriating smirk that I was coming to associate with the spawn of Satan. A single glance sent my mind scrambling for holy water and, for the first time in quite a while, Trey snorted.

 _Smooth,_ was his only remark.

In an effort to conserve energy, Trey was operating on low-power until I needed him, but one look at that inauspicious expression had me rethinking me game plan.

And I had to say... I liked it.

"Congrats, B. You've been promoted from captive to operative."

 _NONONONONONO-_

 _I DID say that I would make a habit of throwing you at deranged psychopaths. I'm just going to be a bit more... gentle about it this time._

 _You bitch!_ Trey cried.

All throughout this verbally silent debate, Beyond spent staring at me with an unreadable expression. By the time I tossed him Trey's limp form to him, Beyond was more than prepared to catch. However, no sooner than he had obtained my mechanical companion did he hold the loctopus by a single leg, pinched between two fingers.

"It picks locks. Press it against any keyhole until it vibrates in your hand," I explained. "Hold onto it until further notice. Lose it, and I'll assume you'd rather pick locks with your own finger bones." I raise my dagger for emphasis.

"His name is Trey," Autumn informed brightly. "His stomach is ticklish."

Beyond, pointedly ignoring my less than subtle threats, squinted at the loctopus. "He?" the man muttered, almost to himself.

 _KC, if you make me stay here and babysit_ _again_ _, I will-_

 _You're the best, Trey,_ I interrupted with a unholy smirk. Aloud, I announced, "Be back in twenty. Try to avoid killing each other."

"'Kay," Autumn mumbled. Fear was creeping into the girl's expression, as though terrified at the thought of being left alone with the serial killer.

"And if you aren't back in twenty minutes?" Beyond asked, eyeing me passively.

I shrugged and opened the driver's door, slipping out into the parking garage. "There are disposable debit cards in the dash. Check into a regal hotel and keep yourselves occupied until I get back."

"And if you don't come back?"

It took all of my self-control not to stab Beyond through the back of his left hand. Training a dark stare on the man and trying not to focus on how he returned the look with a challenging expression, I grinned.

Then I slammed the car door.

* * *

 **January 16, 2007; 1:18 P.M.  
Los Angeles, California; United States**

When KC returned thirteen minutes later, once again shrouded in a Watari guise, Beyond couldn't help but notice the woman's confident strides. And when said woman and her confident strides ushered Beyond and the small child through many back doors and long hallways, Beyond was truly impressed when they emerged on a runway with a fueled plane already waiting to be boarded.

Within minutes, all three people were aboard with their "luggage", the plane sealing itself closed as KC threw herself into the pilot's seat. The girl had been left in First Class with some generic Disney film occupying her, so Beyond sank into the seat next to KC and watched the woman with a sense of estranged fascination. Curiosity blazed inside of Beyond—how had KC managed to secure them a plane in thirteen minutes?—but he understood that fleeing the country was a more pressing matter than satisfying his own impulsive desires.

He really had changed in the five years spent in isolation. Where once was a bold and proud man, ruled by his passions and wayward morals, now stood (or sat) a man of intellect, wisdom, cunning, and wariness.

If nothing else, Beyond Birthday would learn from his mistakes.

"Ever flown a plane before?" KC asked suddenly, drawing Beyond from his thoughts.

"Are your skills inadequate for such a task?" he countered, unable to help himself.

As predicted, KC shot him a venomous look. "Have you or haven't you?" she questioned. Buckling herself into place with sharp, swift motions, KC was attempted to retain her composure and was doing a marvelous job.

However, Beyond could glean her frustration from the slightest cracks in her facade. KC was stressed, and Beyond's witticisms were only furthering her anxiety.

"I haven't," he admitted, "though my mastery of aerodynamics is more than sufficient to get us in the air. So long as I can determine how the controls work, I understand the process that must be followed in order to ascend."

"If you tell me that landing is a matter of basic physics, I _will_ shoot you," KC stated flatly.

Beyond gave her a lecherous smirk. "Physics, aerodynamics, intuition..." If looks could kill, Beyond would have been a smoldering pile of ash.

"...Trade seats. I can explain the controls. You fly and I'll play air traffic controller."

Yesterday, if someone had told Beyond that he would be flying a plane out of the United States with the woman and child who broke him out of South Gate Psychiatric Hospital, he would have offered to admit them into the asylum as his roommate.

* * *

 **January 16, 2007; roughly two hours later  
Somewhere over the Pacific Ocean**

When all that could be seen was the expanse of ocean stretching out far below them, Beyond asked his question.

"How did you come to procure an aircraft?"

KC blinked and wearily raised her head. Once again, the woman's condition had been deteriorating, but at a much slower pace. Her skin was flushed slightly with exertion, and if her bobbing head and unfocused eyes were anything to go by, KC was struggling to remain conscious.

"The same way I got into South Gate," she replied after a moment. "Turns out that L has incredible influence, even in airports."

It clicked. And it was so simple an idea that Beyond was surprised that he hadn't thought of it at all, much less first.

KC had impersonated L to get into South Gate Psychiatric Hospital. It would make sense for her to demand a plane using the same disguise.

Vaguely impressed, Beyond returned his attention to the controls.

It hadn't taken him but a few minutes to memorize the controls of the airplane. Beyond knew a lot of what was to be done from his schooling at the orphanage, but he had no experience with which to apply his knowledge. Throw in a little refresher from KC and Beyond was ready to take to the skies.

If taking off a straightjacket for the first time in five years was Beyond's idea of freedom, then flying completely took him by surprise. To be soaring high above the clouds, to have surpassed gravity, was an entirely unfamiliar experience—and Beyond loved it. The idea that he was literally taking his own life into his hands was another bonus. He loved the thrill. And that view...

Had Beyond known what this would feel like in younger years, he would have never accepted his fate at Wammy's.

"I'm going to check on the kid," KC said, rescuing Beyond from incredibly sappy thoughts before he could turn into a pile of mush. Unbuckling herself from the co-pilot's seat, KC trained a firm look on him and added, "If something happens, use the intercom."

She was gone before Beyond could reply.

Sighing silently, Beyond returned his attention to the flight controls.

He knew that this freedom was momentary—that, once they landed, it was unlikely for him to feel such a way again—but he wasn't keen on basking in his current emotions. From what little conversation they had exchanged back in the hospital, Beyond understood that they were going to Japan because of L, though the notion of 'why Japan?' was not lost on him.

Why would L be in Japan? More importantly, how did KC know this?

Though if Beyond was to truly question his "saving grace," then he might as well question her odd skill sets, her insistence of dragging a small child into this, or even her strange condition. But, as questioning alone was a task both pointless and fruitless, Beyond resolved himself to remaining focused.

Arrogance and short-sidedness were his downfall before; and Beyond refused to fall victim to such a humiliating failure again.


End file.
